The Butterfly Effect
by KzintiKiller
Summary: Bella heads to Forks for a slightly different reason, with differing results that only diverge more over time.  However, as the old saying goes, "The more things change, the more they remain the same."
1. Chapter 1

**The Butterfly Effect**

_Definition (from physics): Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system._

_AN1: I think that more than a few people have taken a swing at this particular AU, however I don't think that it's been done to death yet, so I'm taking a run at it. There will be blocks of SM's original text salted throughout the fic, decreasing over time as my story veers further and further from canon, but even then, I still may pop something of SM's in now and then just for fun, as a sign post or stepping stone. So if a sentence, the odd paragraph, or even several paragraphs looks sort of familiar don't be too surprised._

* * *

**Fic Starts Here….**

Bella's POV

My battle, such as it was, was over. My bags were packed and in the car, and what I couldn't carry with me or fit in a suitcase had already been shipped to my father's house in Forks, Washington. All there was left to do was to say my goodbyes. I walked out to the living room to find my stepfather waiting for me with a stoic look on his face. He wasn't happy about this, but he could accept the inevitable as well as I could.

"You ready Bella?" Phil asked

I nodded, but as I looked around the room I noticed something missing.

"Where is she?"

Phil half smiled. "Saying goodbye to the back yard," he replied.

Turning around I cut through the kitchen to the back door. Stepping outside I found the object of my search, with a disconsolate look of her face, swinging back and forth on her elderly looking swing set.

"Come on Kat. We have to go and see mommy."

"I don't want to," she piped up in a high voice.

"Why not?" I responded

"Because then we have to go away."

I sighed. "Yes, we'll have to go away, but that's a good thing. We're going to see Charlie. You want to see Charlie don't you?" Maybe baiting her with Charlie wasn't the best idea, but it was worth a shot. She had really only seen him a handful of times in her short life, but she loved him wholeheartedly.

She pouted. "Yeah," she responded grudgingly.

"Okay then, let's hop to it, kiddo. We don't want to miss our flight."

Taking her hand I led her back inside, past Phil, who followed us out the front door to his car and the beginning of our exile from the sunny skies of Phoenix.

Katrina Alexis Swan. Age five. She started out as something of an unwelcome surprise that resulted from what mom called 'a birth control anomaly'. Her sperm donor, Randolph 'of the phony last name' Smith, was one of Renee's sometime boyfriends, and we hadn't seen hide nor hair of him since the day my mother had proven to be pregnant. Child support you ask? Don't make me laugh. Charlie had been more help providing for Kat than Randy had ever dreamed of being, even though he wasn't the father of record. He still had a standing warrant out for Randy's arrest, should he ever be stupid enough to enter Washington State.

Renee hadn't changed her name after the divorce, because Swan is simpler and easier to write than her maiden name of Higgenbotham. So Kat bore Charlie's name, and none of us thought it the least bit odd. Through some genetic quirk, she and I resembled each other so strongly that my relatively few passing friends often tagged her as "mini-me". Seeing us together you'd swear that she was as much Charlie's daughter as I was. Taken together with her last name, it led Charlie to think that way as well, which leads us to the Rubicon that we were both about to cross.

Phil and mom were honeymooning down in Mexico when some drunken idiot piloted his ninety foot yacht over the catamaran that they were day-sailing on. Phil had come out all right, but mom not so much. She'd been in the hospital down there for eight weeks and up here for another six. Now she was in a rehab facility trying to recover and learn to walk again. The best prognosis that the doctors could give us was none too good. They said that it could take a year….or longer. And that was to give her even limited mobility. The cherry on top of all of that was that there was still the possibility of further corrective surgery looming on the horizon which would reset the recovery calendar to zero again.

My step-father is a good guy, second only to Charlie in my mind. After a long losing streak, mom found him thanks to Kat. My little sister has a rare talent that mom and I call her 'jerk-radar'; the ability to instinctively sort the good ones from the bad ones on sight. And then have nothing to do with the bad ones. Man after man passed through the door of our home only to be sent packing when they didn't pass the Kat litmus test. If they tried to engage her she'd run away. If they tried to touch her, she'd cry. Phil had won a second date only after Kat, laying eyes on him for the first time, crawled into his lap and promptly fell asleep.

Being a good guy, he wasn't about to abandon his crippled wife to the tender mercies of the medical profession. The previously mentioned drunken idiot's liability insurance had paid off handsomely, in the low eight figures, and without a quiver; resulting in more than enough money to see mom through, and then some. Though I didn't want to touch any of it, because it felt like blood money, I had no qualms about using it to take care of Kat. And it hadn't hurt my college fund any either.

So, things being the way that they were, I'd buckled down for the long haul. I'm a caregiver by nature. Before Phil came along, Renee and I had been more like sisters than mother and daughter - me being the older more responsible one. I'd been her unofficial Lamaze coach for god's sake. And so I figured the next few years would consist of helping Phil look after Renee, while I was looking after Kat. Everything else would take a back seat.

That is until Phil and my sneaky parents had a conference call behind my back. Several things had resulted from that call. The first was that Phil scrapped his much loved but mediocre minor league baseball career. A couple of phone calls to old friends let him slide into an opening on the coaching staff for the Arizona Diamondbacks. It wasn't big money, but it made him a decent living while letting him stay put in Phoenix. The second was that Kat and I were moving. All three of them knew that if I were in Phoenix I spread myself thin to look after everyone. And in their opinion, that was no way for a girl approaching the end of her teens to live. My opinion wasn't asked. And truthfully, I agreed with them, but I'd always put my own needs at the bottom of a very long list. So, they decided that Phil needed to concentrate on Renee, and I needed to focus on school, being a teenager, and Kat. I just didn't have to be happy about it.

So, to make that happen, Kat and I were being packed off to Charlie until such time as mom could rejoin the land of the living - or until I finished high school, whichever came first. And Charlie could take some of the load off of me by helping out with Kat. That was the plan anyway. You know what they say about the best laid plans. Right?

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: These first few chapters are considerably shorter than my usual, simply because I wasn't really sure about this plot bunny at first. We'll see how it goes as time passes. I've got quite a few chapters in the can so far, so I reckon I'm far enough ahead of the game to post every few days for a bit. Just don't expect this pace to go on indefinitely. As the chapters get bigger, the frequency of posting will decrease._

Bella's POV

Our connecting flight landed in Port Angeles at four o'clock in the afternoon. We'd nearly missed our flight out of Phoenix because Kat wouldn't leave mom. She'd clung to Renee's bedside crying inconsolably until Renee finally made Phil and I leave the room so she could talk to Kat alone. I don't know what she said, but ten minutes later Kat popped out of her room and announced that she was ready to leave. Rather than look a gift horse in the mouth Phil and I had kissed mom goodbye, and made tracks for Sky Harbor International. As it was we barely made the final boarding call for our flight.

Once we'd deplaned and made it through the seemingly endless security we found Charlie waiting for us at the gate, in uniform.

"Hey girls!" he said with an enormous smile, as he held out his arms to Kat, who was in them with one running jump. "Kitten, what's your sister been feeding you?" he groaned theatrically. "You must have gained a thousand pounds since I last saw you!"

"Charlie! You're silly. I'm still little!" she shrilled.

"Hi Cha…dad," I said tiredly. "What's with the uniform? I thought you said that you were off today?"

He frowned. "I got called in. There was some trouble out at the Rez. Some tourist boys tried to get pushy with some Quileute girls, and the local boys took exception. The Rez is federal land, but the tribal council didn't want to make a stink, so they drove the tourist kids to the edge of their land and handed them over to me and a deputy." He shrugged. "I scared the pants off of them and handed them over to their parents. Hopefully they'll vacation somewhere else next year."

I grinned. "Still protecting and serving Forks, even off duty?" I said as I gave him a hug.

Charlie shrugged. "No rest for the wicked I guess." He looked around craning his neck. "Let's get to the luggage carousel and get your bags. There's a Sonics game on tonight. I want to get you girls settled and get dinner out of the way before it comes on." He studied the little girl in his arms, taking in the Diamondbacks shirt and cap she was wearing with her winter jacket and bib overalls. Plunder from Phil's new job. "I can't wait for baseball season to introduce this one to the Mariners."

Kat wrinkled her nose. "Diamondbacks rule!" she announced firmly.

Charlie chuckled. "We'll see Kitten, we'll see."

* * *

It was almost nine o'clock that night before Kat and I got completely settled. One of Charlie's better points as a father is that he doesn't crowd you. He was affectionate when required, but aside from that he's got the most laid back parenting style you ever saw. Once we got past supper and the dishes, he retired to the couch to watch his beloved Supersonics. Supper, by the way, proved one thing. Charlie had been doing the bachelor thing for too long. It contained too much red meat and grease. Starting tomorrow, I was taking charge in the kitchen, and proving that cholesterol was _not_ a food group. I wanted Charlie to stay around for a while longer.

Once the dishes were done I took Kat upstairs to finish unpacking. Charlie had made a try at it, but he was really hopeless. It took nearly three hours, but we made it. I got Kat's room and my room completely squared away. Kat's toys, my beloved books, and music CDs all neatly stowed and shelved. Clothes neatly folded and put away or hung up. I surveyed my work with satisfaction. It was probably the one and only time that either of our rooms would look so neat again.

I looked down at my little helper and smiled. "Okay sweetie, it's time for your bath. We need to get to bed. We have a lot to do tomorrow."

Kat yawned mightily. "Do I hafta? Can't I just go to bed the way I am?"

"Ye-e-e-s, you hafta." I answered. "The sooner you're clean, the sooner you're in bed."

Thirty minutes later, clad in her Dora jammies, Kat settled under the thick blankets and a quilt. She yawned again and regarded me solemnly. I was struck by this strange sense that I was looking in a time adjusted mirror. She looked so much like I had at her age. Porcelain skin, big brown eyes, and the heart-shaped face. Only it looked cuter on her.

I sat down one the edge of the bed, tucking her in as I kissed her forehead. Before saying goodnight, I paused.

"Kat?"

"Yes?" she answered.

"What did mommy say to you today when we left?

She shrugged. "She said that if it were up to her, she'd never let me go, but that you had to go away anyway, and you needed someone to look after you. Since she can't do it, she asked me to."

I blinked, fighting back nascent tears. "Oh," I squeaked. Then I leaned over and kissed her cheek. "I'm sure you'll do a good job. You were taught by the best." I kissed her other cheek. "Goodnight, Kat."

She yawned and, already half sleep, mumbled, "G'night Sissy."

I turned out the lights and hurried through my own shower and nightly routine. Twenty minutes later I was settling into my own bed. But before sleep could take me I felt my covers shift as they were lifted and Kat slid in next to me. I'd expected it. In a strange place, or in times of stress, she'd often wake up and seek me out. Without a word I curled up around her, and cuddled her to my chest, as dreamless sleep claimed us both.

Tomorrow was Sunday, and our new life would begin.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Bella's POV

I am so _not_ a morning person, but that doesn't matter to Kat. Her energy in the morning could revive a week old corpse. Charlie still had the day off, but he had plans to go into the office later, and I have to depend on him for transportation. If I want to get to the grocery store, or hit any other stores to pick up to thousand or so odds and ends I have on my list, I'll have to step lively. So, while my little sister was working her way, unenthusiastically through a bowl of oatmeal, I planned my attack. I mean, Charlie knew that we were coming for weeks. How is it he didn't lay in any kids' breakfast food?

"Charlie?" I called from my position at the sink.

He glanced up from his coffee and paper, where he sat across from Kat. "Yes, Bella?"

"I need to do some shopping this morning, and until I can go car shopping I'm sort of stuck. Are you up for playing chauffeur?"

Charlie smiled. "Ummm, about that…you haven't looked out the front window this morning yet, have you?"

I walked over to the window and peeked out through the curtains. There in the driveway next to Charlie's cruiser, in all it's beaten up grimy glory, sat a dingy red pickup truck. My face lit up as I grabbed my jacket and dashed outside. I walked round and round the battered old road warrior, reverently running my hand over the bulbous fenders. Charlie couldn't even have been a gleam in his own father's eye when this…this…tank had rolled out of Detroit. It was beautiful. I loved it. A peek in the cab showed that he'd already moved Kat's booster seat from the back of his cruiser. I looked up at the porch to see Charlie standing there, coffee in hand, grinning. Kat was standing next to him, looking curious, as he held up a set of keys and jiggled them.

I dashed up to the porch and, mindful of his coffee, gave him an enthusiastic hug.

"Is that for me?" I squealed.

Charlie chuckled. "Yep. It was delivered early this morning."

"Where'd you get it?" I asked as I pulled away. "It's beautiful! It's a classic!"

Charlie placed the keys in my hand. I noticed the key ring had a big shiny new "B" attached to it and kissed him again.

"It used to belong to Billy Black. You remember Billy?"

I nodded. Billy was Charlie's best friend on the Rez, and favorite fishing partner.

"He's had it since the late 80's. His boy Jacob just took the engine apart down to the last bolt and rebuilt it. It may look like a contestant in a demolition derby, but it has new tires, a new suspension, a rebuilt transmission, new brakes, and under the hood it's as near to new as it can be. And it has a full tank of gas."

I grinned widely and looked at my little sister. "Scoot! Go get dressed. You and I have some shopping to do!"

Charlie and I followed her inside as he downed the last of his coffee. While I was cleaning up the remaining breakfast dishes Charlie started gathering his law enforcement paraphernalia. I noticed gratefully that he was keeping his service weapon in a gun safe next the front door. Having Kat in a house with a loaded gun had worried me. He threw on his jacket and walked over to give me a one armed hug and a kiss.

"I'm going now. I won't be too late. I just need to look at last night's blotter and sign off on it, then take a quick tour or the town to make sure that no one missed anything."

I admired that about Charlie. He was as devoted and conscientious as a cop as he was about being a father. He looked after his people.

He opened the cupboard next to the sink and handed me an old peanut butter jar full of cash that was labeled 'food money'.

"This is the kitchen budget. It's yours to look after now. I won't complain too loudly about anything else that you spend your own money on, but I pay for the food around here, and that means for you and Kat too. If you start running short, let me know." He kissed my cheek one more time and gave me a squeeze. "I'll see you later sweetheart."

He paused at the bottom of the stairs and bellowed, "Katrina Alexis! I'm going now!"

Kat came whooping down the stairs and launched herself off the third step into Charlie's arms. Those gymnastics lessons had paid off handsomely. Kat was as graceful and athletic as I was graceless and clumsy. Which reminded me. I should check into keeping up her gymnastics here in town; or in Port Angeles if I had too.

I heard the door close and a moment later Kat wandered into the kitchen. Blue shirt and bibs, she was dressed head to toe in Dora the Explorer, complete with backpack. It looked cute, but thank god I'd managed to talk her out of that mop head Dora-do she'd wanted a year ago. Her beautiful brown curls were nearly as long as mine. They were still in yesterday's pigtails, which were looking a little the worse for wear. So I dried my hands, fished a brush out of my purse, undid her tails, and, brushed her hair out.

"_We_ are going to wash this hair tonight young lady. You have your first day of school tomorrow, and you want to look nice."

Kat frowned. "It's not my first day tomorrow. I had my first day way back a long time ago."

I smirked. Yeah, when you're five, going on six, last September can seem like a lifetime ago. "No sweetie, I mean your first day in Forks. Charlie got you signed up for kindergarten at the elementary school. I'll drop you off in the morning."

"Are the teachers nice? Mrs. Reynolds back home was really nice."

I sighed, because I certainly hoped so. This move was hard enough on Kat without her teacher turning out to be Cruella de Vil. "I'm sure they are. But if they aren't, you be sure to tell me, okay?"

Kat nodded her head vigorously. "Are we going out now?"

I grinned as I checked her shoes. Sure enough, the strings were loose. I tied them as I said, "Yep. We need more food and school supplies. And _you_ need rain gear. It rains a lot here."

She gave me her best 'duh' look and rolled her eyes. "I know that. I was here last year, 'member? It rained then. It was raining when we got here yesterday. It's raining now."

I laughed out loud. "Okay smart-aleck.. Point taken. Let's hit the road." Taking her hand, as I grabbed an umbrella, we walked out the door into our brave, albeit soggy, new world.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

_Yes, I'm posting a bit sooner than I'd planned. I'm in the middle of a one shot and trying to get my next chapter of TBE ready for beta, so I need to focus. Have fun with this one. It contains the first brush between the Cullens and the Swans._

Kat's POV

We just got home from the store. Boy, was Sissy's new truck loud. Sissy went to the Walmart and got me the neatest raincoat. It's like a yellow super-hero cape, with a hood. She got me underwear and socks too. And we got crayons, and I got a new Dora coloring book, and notebooks and school stuff for Sissy. And we saw the nicest lady in the checkout line. She was buying paint and stuff. She had long hair, like me and Sissy, but not as dark. She was really pretty. She smiled at me and I smiled back. As we were walking out of the store she got into this shiny silver car that was waiting for her, and it drove away. I hope she's my teacher tomorrow.

Alice's POV

Since Rosalie and Emmett were out in his jeep, and Rose's car is just a little too flashy for a trip to the store, I begged Edward to let us borrow his precious S60, but he was in one of his increasingly frequent dour moods, so he wouldn't hear of it. The Volvo was going nowhere unless he was driving it. It's silly really, because all of us have driven it home from school and around town at one time or another. So since he was being stubborn he ended up driving Esme and I into Lacey, Washington for some shopping. That's where the closest Walmart was. There wasn't much that I wanted. Just some magazines from a tiny local book store that was located in the same shopping plaza, but Esme was between major restoration projects, so she was getting creative with her and Carlisle's room again. As a result she needed supplies. Walmart wasn't usually her first choice for quality materials, or even her second or third choice, and I'd rather be dismembered than even walk through the doors of that place, but this was a scratch project and she was in a hurry. So she was shopping while the family shopaholic waited in the car with her brother. Esme always did have a stronger stomach than me.

She'd put her purchases in the trunk and was just getting into the car, when a young woman and little girl walked out of the store. Edward raced off as soon as Esme was safely settled in her seat, but not quickly enough for my fickle talent. The outside world went away for just a moment and I flinched as an image flashed across my inner eye. I shook my head to clear it away, but it refused to go. Glancing at the back of Edward's head from my position in the rear seat, I took a different approach and buried it deep in my mind, behind layers of surface nonsense, and prayed that he hadn't picked it up because he was focused on Esme. I'd think about it later.

I would consider the curious and disturbing image from that little girl's future. I didn't even know who she was yet. But I would.

Bella's POV

It was a good thing that Charlie had shown me where the money was, because I'd spent a big chunk of it this morning. And it was an even better thing that Walmart employees are so courteous. Because there was no way I could have jockeyed two full carts of groceries _and_ kept my little sister corralled at the same time. It was aggravating to have to drive halfway to Seattle just for some shopping, but we needed too many things that Forks' tiny Thriftway couldn't provide. When I'd made up my list yesterday, it looked like the only two things that Charlie wasn't in danger of running out of were fish and coffee. The steak and french fries that we'd eaten last night had pretty much cleaned out his kitchen freezer, and the refrigerator had milk, butter, and ketchup in it; with no vegetables or fruit in sight. Not exactly a balanced diet. Something that I'd corrected today. And it had been a crowded ride home. It was still raining, so none of the groceries could ride in the back of the truck either. Which put, me, Kat, and a _lot_ of bags in the cab. In the course of that trip I discovered my 'free' truck had a minor flaw. Its muffler had apparently seen better days.

Once I got everything inside, I got Kat settled in front of the TV watching the Discovery Channel and started putting things away. Most of the meat went into the freezer in the garage, which had heretofore held little but fish. Ditto the frozen vegetables. Fresh vegetables and fruit filled the refrigerator along with more milk and three kinds of fruit juice. Canned goods, breakfast foods, staples, and sundries went into the pantry. I couldn't help but wonder _when_ Charlie had last eaten _soup_, or anything healthy at all_._

After I'd put everything away, I noticed the time and stopped to make a couple of sandwiches for Kat and I. Thank god she's easy to please. Peanut butter and jelly are her version of ambrosia. She'd live on nothing else if I let her. After we'd eaten I set about planning the menu for the week and started assembling casseroles to go in the kitchen freezer until needed. Between my schooling and Kat's, the heavy cooking would be reserved for weekends. Like now. While I finished the casseroles I quickly slipped a beef roast that I'd saved out of the freezer into the oven with some sliced onions. This would be Charlie's last hurrah. While we were here I would handle the cooking, and his red meat and fried food consumption were about to go into a sharp decline. I wanted him around for Kat's wedding one day. When my assembly line casserole production was done I quickly peeled some potatoes and carrots to go in with the roast when it was time.

Charlie's POV

I'd promised Bells that I wouldn't be late, and I was determined to keep that promise, despite the fact that my day shift Desk Sergeant, Al Taggart, seemed to want to jaw endlessly about nothing at all. There was nothing in his one-sided chatter relating to the job, or my life, or even _his_ life. Finally I'd had enough gossip, so I gave him a fast good afternoon, and walked out. Yeah, it was rude, but I had more important things to consider tonight.

I drove home thinking about what was waiting for me there. I finally had a real tangible family again. For the last half decade I've making been do with two week doses once a year, since Bells stopped coming for the summer about the time Kat was born. After that their time in my house had become limited to an overnight stopover on our yearly vacation to California. Last year had been Kat's first year on the big trip with us. I was a parenting junkie who needed my fix more regularly than that. I'm not given to big emotional displays, but in my heart I'd practically danced on the ceiling when Renee and Phil had agreed with me that moving the kids here was the best thing for their situation. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't jealous of Phil. Not specifically because of Renee, though I'd be lying twice over if I said that wasn't part of it. Mostly though it was because he was getting the dad time that I should have had. I was even happier when Bella didn't kick up a fuss. That girl can out-stubborn anyone when she sets her mind to it. So having her agree quickly to the move made everyone's life easier. As much as I wanted extended quality time with Bella and Katy, having hostile angry kids in the house wouldn't be good for my down time. And as Bella went, so went Katy.

I walked in the door to a heavenly smell drifting out of the kitchen. Kat was in the living room watching something about penguins on Discovery Channel.

"Charlie!" she crowed, as she scrambled over the couch to launch herself at me. I grunted as I caught the little monkey and gave her a half toss before hugging her to me.

"Katrina!" shouted her sister. "That's furniture, not playground equipment. You don't scramble around on it like it was the monkey bars!"

"Sorry, Sissy," the munchkin answered contritely as I let her down. "I was just in a hurry to hug daddy."

I froze. I knew as well as anyone that she wasn't mine. She never called me daddy to my face, and this was the first time she'd referred to me as daddy within my hearing. It felt good. No, good is an understatement. It felt like coming home.

Of course, as 'daddy' I wasn't stupid enough to flout 'mommy's' authority by arguing on Kat's behalf, no matter how adorable she was at that moment. Walking into the kitchen I inhaled deeply.

"Smells good! What are we having?"

"Beef roast with potatoes and carrots. Enjoy it. It's your last red meat until next weekend. Tomorrow night it's baked chicken breast with spinach pasta."

I know I must have looked a little unhappy, because Bella got this stern look and planted her hands on her hips.

"If you want me to cook, then you eat what I cook," she said firmly.

I grinned weakly and answered, "Sure thing, sweetie." After all I'd asked for it when I handed over the kitchen to her. Now I had it.

"Good," she nodded. "The vegetables just went in, and I've got the salad done. Supper is in thirty minutes. Lose the gun and get cleaned up."

I chuckled at my little girl's bossiness. Too many years of looking after Renee had left her with an air of maturity far beyond most of her peers. It helped make her self-reliant, but it also isolated her from kids her own age. Hopefully a few years here would let her recapture a little of being a kid again, before her girlhood was over.

I locked my service weapon in the gun safe, and went upstairs to change clothes and wash up. For the first time in a very long time, my house felt like a home.

Bella's POV

I drew a cleansing breath and blew it out. It had been a long and busy day. Kat was in bed, after taking a bath and having her hair washed. Charlie was still downstairs, but I was in my room finishing up. I'd had a shower. My school stuff and paper work were in my old book bag. My clean clothes were already laid out. My directions to the elementary school just half a block from the high school were on the desk. I was ready. I was also depressed as hell. The funny thing about it was that, given time I probably would have arrived at the same conclusions my parents had, and asked to go. I just wasn't used to them getting there first and them being parental…and…you know…right. I sighed. Voluntary or involuntary, I was here now. Tomorrow it was time to start playing the cards the way they were dealt.

Pulling back my covers I turned out my lights and snuggled into bed. True to form, before my bed could get warm, the covers stirred as Kat crept in with me. Curling up against each other we fell asleep.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

_AN: Now we start to get into it. Bella meets the Cullens, or at least one Cullen in particular, with predictable results. This is the first chapter that has little bits of SM here and there, so hats off to her. _

Bella's POV

I've always _hated_ being 'the new kid', and today was no different than any other time I've had to start a new school, but just the same this morning has gone pretty much according to plan. I dropped Kat off a bit early so I had some time meet her teacher. Frederica Bascome seemed to be a lovely woman - motherly and kind - though Kat looked a bit disappointed when she first laid eyes on her. Fortunately that didn't seem to last long. Fred, as she'd insisted that I call her, had a winning way about her. She had Kat captivated in the first five minutes.

I arrived at school on time, though I felt like I was cutting it close, because I had wanted to be here earlier my first day. I sighed as I entered the parking lot. I'd just have to get used to that. Charlie would help out with Kat as much as he could, but he was a full time cop, and the top cop at that. That meant that, errands, picking up, dropping off, shopping, and various other 'single mom' stuff would mostly be my job. I smiled as I thought about it, and decided that I wouldn't have it any other way.

I slipped my truck into an open parking spot, took a deep breath, and got out muttering, "Hail Caesar! We who are about to die salute you," as I marched into the school under the curious eyes of the few students that were still hanging around in the parking lot. Stopping in the office I'd gotten my schedule from an incredibly nice woman named Mrs. Cope, consulted the school map that was with my paperwork, and hurried off towards my first class.

The day that followed was a blur of new faces and rehashed course work. Some of the reactions were a little…off. The girls seemed mostly standoffish, and the boys seemed more interested than they should be. Three boys in particular stuck out; the first two because they talked to me, and the last one most of all because he didn't.

Edward's POV

"_Wow, is she hot…."_

That was the tenth variation on that thought I'd picked up since arriving at school. Chief Swan's daughter was apparently having her first day at our school. There were a great many more thoughts that were less polite, and more than a few of _those_ were just plain vulgar. I wasn't all that sure what she looked like, beyond pale skin and dark hair, because any image that was vivid enough to stick in a teenage boy's mind almost invariably had her doing things that I'm certain were illegal in this state, and which would earn her erstwhile partner an acquaintance with the business end of her father's taser if the Chief could hear what they were thinking. And regardless, such thoughts were enough to make me pull away from the mind having them.

"_I'd say she's a probably a skank…"_

Okay, that was a new one. Lauren Mallory, the resident queen bee was holding court outside of her home room. I listened more closely.

"_Sarah Townsend walked by that wreck she drives and saw a child's safety seat in it. She's probably an unwed mother. Which means that every boy worth anything at all will be sniffing around her by the end of the day in hopes of an easy lay,"_ she announced to her rapt audience.

Angela Weber, one of the habitual outsiders spoke up. _"You don't know that for sure, it could be her dad's truck, or…"_

She was cut off as Jessica Stanley threw in her opinion. _"Yeah, but would Chief Swan would be caught dead driving that thing? And if it is his truck, what's it doing with a safety seat in it? Chief Swan doesn't have any other kids that __I've__ heard of…."_

The demolition of the new girl's reputation went on apace until the bell rang. I shook my head. It amazed me how twisted the Mallory girl's reasoning was. If what I'd been hearing all morning was anything to go by, it apparently didn't take a suspicion of loose morals to have all the boys casting adoring eyes at young Miss Swan. And any boy that _would_ chase her, based on what would no doubt be common gossip by day's end, would be unworthy of _any_ girl's attention. I grimaced. Swimming in a sea of immaturity and hormones was part and parcel of our camouflage. But I didn't have to like it. Now though, I was frankly curious. What _did_ she look like?

Bella's POV

As I walked into the cafeteria at lunchtime I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched. I'd managed to strike up an acquaintance with at least one girl, who had invited me to sit with her at lunch. Once we got to the table however, I had the oddest feeling that I was on display. Like a trophy. It helped a little that Mike and Eric, the two boys I'd talked to briefly, were a part of her circle of friends. As a result they joined us for lunch.

Jessica, my new 'friend' was chattering about the drawbacks of the high school when one of the other girls at the table, who'd been introduced as Lauren, spoke up.

"So, Bella is it? What made you leave sunny Phoenix for cloudy Forks?"

I shrugged. "Family issues."

Not to be put off, her eyes narrowed. "Such as?"

I saw several of my tablemates wince slightly. Oh, it was like that, was it? "My mother was in the hospital, my step-dad had to focus on her, and they wanted _me_ to focus on school, so my sister and I moved out here to live with my dad."

Jessica broke in. "Your sister? You have a sister? We heard you were the Chief's only daughter."

Again I shrugged. "I _am_ his only daughter, but that doesn't stop me from having a sibling." Sensing where this was going I glared at Lauren. "And I don't think she's anyone else's business, unless they're my _friend_." Hopefully she wouldn't miss the implications behind my use of the word 'friend'.

The tension at the table stretched almost to the breaking point and then snapped back as Lauren broke eye contact with me.

Looking around for something, anything to restart the conversation, my eye fell on an isolated table against the far wall of the cafeteria. There were five of the most beautiful people I've ever seen in my life sitting there.

"Who are they?" I whispered as I nodded toward.

Jessica leaned close and whispered back. "The Cullens. I mean they're the Cullens' adopted and foster kids. The big guy with the black hair is Emmett Cullen. The swimsuit model on his arm is Rosalie Hale. The blond guy who looks so stiff is Rosalie's brother Jasper. His girlfriend, the perky looking one, is Alice Cullen.

Sitting there staring off in different directions, not eating or talking, they seemed isolated and oblivious, but that had to be a façade. No one was _that_ oblivious, unless they were into Zen meditation. I smiled a bit at the thought of the Zen art of cafeteria dining. It might make the food more edible.

"Who's the fifth one? The younger one with the reddish brown hair?"

Jessica gave a long-suffering sigh. "That's Edward Cullen. The only one of them that isn't coupled up, and the object of the fantasies of every girl in school." The tone of regret in her voice was unmistakable. "But apparently none of us are good enough for him, because the fantasies are still just fantasies."

As if he'd heard her speak, the object of our scrutiny turned inquisitive eyes towards us. He stared at Jessica for a moment, and then flipped his gaze to me briefly. Suddenly, staring into those dark shadowed eyes for only the barest moment, I felt an unfamiliar jolt. Then he looked away with a faint smirk and murmured something to the girl named Alice, who never even looked our way, but who still shook her head slightly. After that he appeared to studiously ignore both of us. I couldn't help but wonder if that was a façade too.

Edward's POV

"_Edward Cullen."_

My name rose out of the background buzz adolescent thoughts like a flashing neon sign, alerting me to the fact that I was under discussion. I recognized the mind that gave voice to it. Jessica Stanley. My most persistent admirer for the last two years. A quick glance at her mind told me what I needed to know.

"Jessica Stanley's dishing the dirt on us to the new girl," I murmured.

Emmett smirked. "Any good scandals?"

I smirked. "No, just the usual."

Alice broke off her worried perusal of Jasper's immediate future to glance unobtrusively over at Jessica's table. Something there must have bothered her, because she frowned. Not hard. Her expression flickered so quickly that a human would have missed it, but I didn't.

"Something?"

Alice shrugged. _"No, just an idle thought. What's the newbie thinking about all of this?"_

Just then I sensed that I was being watched and glanced over at the Stanley girl's table. A chance to reinforce our untouchable status without being overt about it was not to be passed up. I made eye contact with Jessica, and she predictably looked away. Then I glanced at the new girl. To a human it would have seemed brief, but for one of us it was the equivalent of a full on stare. She really was quite lovely. The combination of pale to the point of luminescence skin, dark hair, and warm brown eyes was…intimidating. I looked back at Alice though I kept my mind over on Jessica's table.

Alice and I traded stares as she studied my face. It must have given me away, because her next thought was, "_What is it?"_

I shrugged and muttered, "I can't read her. At all. Either she has a spectacularly empty mind, which I don't believe for a second, or there's something else going on."

The others had been listening and Jasper frowned. "Nothing? You get nothing from her? How is that even possible?" he murmured.

I gave a blindingly fast shrug. "Who knows? All I can tell you is that the only minds I can hear at that table are the ones that I know only too well. Where she _should_ be there's just a void."

Rosalie snorted softly. _"I don't know whether to be jealous of her, or worried," _she thought.

Emmett chuckled. _"So, the Mighty Kreskin craps out?"_

"Don't worry. I'm sure I'll have a chance to get close to her before the day is over. Once I do it won't take more than a minute to confirm my suspicions, one way or the other."

* * *

Sometime later I was running as fast as humanly possible, which is to say I was moving at a snail's pace for one of us, when I hit the doors to the student parking lot. When I reached the Volvo I leaned against it, resting my hands on the roof. My muscles kept trying to spasm and I fought desperately to keep my fingers from digging into the metal as I drew great ragged breaths. While I no longer needed the air to live, I desperately needed to get Isabella Swan's scent out of my lungs. The maddening, tantalizing, _delicious _aroma of her sweet blood had nearly caused me to massacre a classroom full of innocent children. Not to mention poor Mrs. Cope in the office, when the Swan girl had innocently wandered through the door while I was trying to charm her into letting me change my class schedule. Slowly, oh so slowly, the monster within me calmed and withdrew to the prison that I'd thought was so secure. I opened the door and scrambled into my car. I felt better at once as the scents of my family surrounded me. Selecting the most raucous CD in my collection I played it at a punishing volume level. Punishing. That was a good word for it. I felt like I'd failed. Failed my father and my family. I needed a little punishment.

After lunch I'd planned to brush by her in the halls at some point. I intended to interact with her for just a moment so I could confirm my suspicions, but the opportunity never came. So when Isabella Swan walked into my biology class I welcomed the chance to finally talk to her…for all of about two seconds. Just long enough for the aroma of freesia and strawberries to drift across the room to me. From that moment on my life has a hell on earth, measured in seemingly endless burning seconds. In my arrogance I'd always seen myself as Carlisle's ideal disciple, once I'd gotten past my period of childish rebellion. Perfect in my control of the thirst for human blood that plagued us all. Yet, in the space of a single hour, one innocent little human girl had completely shattered my precious illusions about myself. While I'd always known that I was a killer by my very nature, some part of me lived in the certainty that I would never succumb the way that Emmett had, or struggle every day the way that Jasper did. That I was in control. How wrong I was. It had taken every ounce of self-control that I could muster to make it through that hour without killing her. Without killing my classmates. God only knows what she made of my behavior, because I certainly had no way to know. When it came to Isabella Swan I was telepathically deaf. And the worst part of it was that some part of me still wanted…wanted to go back in there and…and…

"_Edward?" _It was Alice.

I looked up to see my family slowly (for us) making their way towards our car, and I cringed, knowing that I had to admit my failure to them. That not only was I unable to read Isabella Swan's thoughts, but that I'd been a hair's breadth away from killing her in the middle of a crowded classroom.

The car doors swung open as my siblings got in the car for the ride home. Predictably it was Jasper who knew first.

"Edward? What's wrong? The self-loathing and fear are pouring off of you in torrents."

My inner turmoil calmed as he worked his magic on my emotions. It didn't make what I had to do any easier. Rather than answering his question, without turning my head, I addressed Emmett where he sat next to Rosalie in the back seat.

"Emmett?"

"Yeah, Edward?"

"I apologize."

He blinked. "What the hell for?"

"Do you remember what happened, what you did in 1938, and again in '53? How angry I was? How I berated you about it? Both times?"

I looked in the review mirror in time to see his face fall and turned around to look at him.

"I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I never understood."

Alice's eyes zoned out for a moment, and then they cleared as she gasped aloud. "You mean that you never understood, but you do now? Don't you Edward?"

I nodded sickly. "I met mine in fifth period biology today. It was Isabella Swan. Not only can I not hear her mind, but her scent is…beyond me. Beyond anything I've ever known." I started the car and pulled out of our parking space. "Anyway, I wanted to apologize."

I picked up Rosalie's sardonic _"Well, how are the mighty fallen!"_ and accepted it as my due. She'd defended Emmett both times, and both times I'd castigated her for doing so. She deserved to get a little of her own back from me.

Taking a deep breath I said, "I have to leave."

"WHAT?" they all chorused.

"I can't stay here. It's too dangerous, for her and for us. I was within an inch of killing an innocent girl today, not to mention a room full of our classmates. I could have ruined everything we have - everything that we've built - everything that we've become together."

Alice had that 'gone' look again and nodded. "Yes, I see you going. I don't like it, but it's going to happen."

Jasper sighed deeply. "Are you coming home with us?"

I shook my head sharply. It will hurt Esme that I didn't say goodbye, but it would hurt her more when she begged me to stay and I had to refuse.

I stopped at the bottom of our driveway and let them out before I went to see Carlisle. As Alice got out she turned to me. _"You're doing the right thing. She's Charlie Swan's only daughter by blood. Losing her would kill him."_

I sighed. "You didn't hear them at lunch, did you? She has a sister, Alice. A little girl. What if she smells just as good? Watch them, please? Watch our family? Don't let anyone falter the way that I did."

Alice blinked in surprise, and for just a second, something flickered through her thoughts. It was there and gone so fast that I didn't have time to consider it, and I was preoccupied anyway. She leaned in and pecked me on the cheek, and then closed the door and bounded off into the woods after our brothers and sister. Ten minutes later I was at the hospital. Thirty minutes after that, after a brief explanation and a hug, my father swapped cars with me, and I pointed his Mercedes north. By sunrise I was in Alaska.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

_AN1: (sighs theatrically) I admit it, I'm a posting junkie. All day long, I told myself that I wouldn't post this tonight. Yet here I am. Enjoy. My friend Im2xshy is no doubt laughing her butt off at me. ;-)  
_

Bella's POV

After school, I arrived to pick Kat up a couple of minutes early so I had some time on my hands. Time to think about things that I'd rather not be thinking about. What was that all about today in Biology? I may not be the sharpest pencil in the box when it comes to the opposite sex, but I know murderous hatred when I see it. I have no idea what I did to offend Edward Cullen, but I must have done _something_. But I honestly couldn't tell you what. When I'd gotten out to the parking lot, he and his family were already gone, so I wasn't worried or frightened. But I was _angry_. _Furious!_ How dare he ruin my first day at school? He didn't even know me! Oh, but he would tomorrow! We'd have this out, even if I had to take him down in public…in the cafeteria...during lunch. I was sitting on an old bench at the bottom of the walkway leading up the front door of the elementary school waiting for Kat, and I was so mad that I was trembling and my hands were clenched in fists. I'd show him!

"Sissy?"

"Ahhhh!" I shouted.

Poor Kat's slender voice made me jump right out of my skin. The bell had rung and school was out. Children were pouring out of the front door in a noisy joyful mob, some towards the some elderly looking school buses, and some towards the parking lot and their waiting rides. I was the only parent-type waiting at the door….and I was so wrapped up in my own fury that I hadn't even noticed any of it until Kat tugged on my jacket and had spoken. Then I'd scared her by nearly leaping over the bench. I was a bad 'mother'! Something else that I blamed on Edward Cullen!

"I'm sorry, Kitty Kat!" I said, using her pet name, as I tried to soothe away her look of wide-eyed uncertainty. She thought she was in trouble. "It's my fault, Sweetie. I was thinking so hard that I didn't notice anything that was going on around me."

"What were you thinking about?" she asked as she let me pull her into my lap.

"Nothing." Nobody.

"Are you okay?" she asked, innocently.

I wasn't, by a long shot, but I wasn't going to let her know that.

"I'm fine, Sweetie. It was just a long day at school. I had to work hard to catch up." Not true, but whatever works for misdirecting an inquisitive five year old. "How was your day?"

"Fun! We listened to stories and music, and we got to make pictures! They're in my backpack. I'll show you when we get home. Oh, and Mrs. Fred gave me some stuff for you and Charlie."

I sighed. Special supplies no doubt. Kat's kindergarten back in Phoenix had had a dress code of all things. I hoped that wasn't the case here. Kat hadn't noticed it, as such, but Renee and I had hated it. I scooted Kat off of my lap and stood up.

"Let's go, Honey," I said, extending my hand. "We need to get home so I can get dinner in the oven." Kat, ever the biddable child, smiled and took my hand as we walked to the truck. She chattered on about her day as we drove home, focusing on her classmates. Who was nice and who was mean. Kat didn't make friends any more easily than I did, but her social skills were still better than mine. Always a plus.

Once we were home and the chicken and pasta were in the oven, Kat opened her backpack and showed me her art work while I made the salad.

"See this is you, and me, and Charlie, and the truck," she said, showing the charmingly awkward crayon drawing.

"That's very good, Sweetie," I said. "But what's that?" I asked, pointing to a brown blob next to the crayon Kat that looked suspiciously like it had four legs.

"That's Larry, my puppy."

I sighed. This had been an ongoing debate for the last eighteen months. Kat wanted a puppy. Renee was allergic, and I had a feeling that even if Charlie wasn't allergic to dogs, his house probably was. "That's very nice, Kat, but you understand that he's just make-believe, right? I don't think that Charlie will want a puppy around here."

"I'll ask him," she chirped brightly.

"No, Katrina, you won't. Not yet. We haven't even been here two days. Let him get used to us first, before we start asking him for things that he might not want to give us."

Kat pouted, looking forlorn. "Okay, Sissy."

I stopped slicing tomatoes and put down my knife, before squatting down to her level to deliver a hug and a kiss. "I'll ask him about it in a few weeks, Baby. I promise." Thereby preparing him for the inevitable onslaught when he said no. Saying no to a Katrina pout was difficult at best. If she threw in tears, you were a goner if you hadn't had constant practice like Renee and I. Phil was still a sucker for the tears, and I had no reason to believe that Charlie could hold his ground without preparation.

"Okay," she replied mournfully, following it up with a mighty sniff.

"Show me your other pictures," I said, trying to distract her. I watched with amusement as she shuffled through a handful of colorful artwork.

"This is the house back home," she said, holding up a picture that roughly approximated our home in Phoenix, with the exception of the blue cactuses around it.

"That's really good, Honey," I said with a grin. I glanced at the other pictures in her hand and pointed curiously to the one on top of the stack. "What's that?"

She held it up for my inspection. It was a vaguely female figure next to a silver car.

"It's the pretty lady," she answered.

"The pretty lady?"

"Yeah, she smiled at me at the Walmart. She had long wavy hair, like ours, but not so dark. She was really pretty. I was hoping that she'd be my teacher today."

Ah! So that was why she had the momentary long face this morning, when she met her teacher. Whoever the 'pretty lady' was, she'd obviously made a big impression on my sister.

"Don't worry, Sweetie. If the pretty lady was shopping at the Walmart, then she probably lives around here. You'll see her again."

She smiled brightly at the thought and started to put her pictures away before I stopped her. "Let's put those up on the refrigerator so Charlie can see them." Her smile widened as she nodded enthusiastically. Thank god I'd anticipated this, and Walmart carries everything including refrigerator magnets.

After we'd built her art gallery for Charlie, I went back to getting the salad together. After a moment, she sighed and I looked over at her. She was looking out the window, and for a change, it wasn't raining.

"Do you want to go outside and play?"

She looked at me and nodded energetically.

"Okay, but here are the rules. You stay in the backyard. You do not go into the trees without Charlie or me with you. And, what else?"

Kat sighed melodramatically. "No talking to strangers."

"That's right, Katrina, no talking to strangers. Now go get your coat on. It may not be raining, but it's still cold out there. And if it starts raining again I want you inside, pronto."

Kat vanished like a shot and reappeared, struggling with her winter coat. I wiped my hands and helped her button up and put her hat on.

"Okay, now scoot. Have fun, but stay close and don't wander off. Supper will be out in thirty minutes."

She was out the door whooping like a little Indian on the warpath. I smiled, wondering if it had ever been like that for me. I couldn't remember precisely, but I suspected not. I was too bookish, quiet, and clumsy to be much of a tomboy explorer.

I kept glancing out the window into the backyard while I worked. At first, she just ran in aimless circles, burning off excess energy. Then she settled down and got methodical. Inspecting Charlie's boat. Walking around the old garage in back. Walking the perimeter of the yard, stopping now and again to examine something on the ground. The half-hour flew by. The next thing I knew, Charlie was pulling in.

I turned to look at him as he got out of the car, expecting Kat to go charging into his arms, but…no Katrina. I frowned and stepped to the back door, scanning the backyard through the window. She was nowhere in sight. Was I really that careless that I'd lost track of her?

Panic began to nibble at my thoughts as I stepped outside. Where was she? "Kat?" I called.

She didn't come.

"KATRINA ALEXIS SWAN!"

There was no answer.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

_AN1: Only one person was alarmed enough by Kat being missing to ask about her? I'm crushed. I must be slipping._

_AN2: I'm posting on a manic high from getting an enormous payday. Tonight it's good to be me! FYI: Kat's 'voice' in this chapter was vetted by my friend Im2xshy, who actually has a boy Kat's age. Blessings on my betas and sound boards, Im2xshy and jdficwriter. _

Kat's POV

Sissy stayed inside while I looked around. I like the outside, everywhere I go, but Sissy can't stand it unless the sun is out a lot, like at my mom's house. In our new house, the outside is something you have to go into to get to the next inside. Anyway, I like it out here. I like the cold air, the green trees, the animals, and the sounds. I can hear the sounds of birds and the pip-pip-pip noise the water makes when it falls off the trees in the woods. If you really listen to it, it sounds like a song. But you have to be very still, and be quiet. I sat down on the pile of wood behind the garage and listened to the water on the leaves. Then there was another sound. It was like something big moving in the woods. It scared me because I knew that big animals sometimes lived out there like bears and maybe even tigers. Some were big and good, and some were big and bad. I couldn't move, and just hoped that this wasn't a bad one.

"Hello?" said a voice that made me think of the sounds I learned in my music classes, even more pretty than the raindrops were.

Alice's POV

I love my brother, but he's a bit of a moron at times. Admittedly his staying away from the Swan girl is a good idea right now. I can 'see' that it was necessary. His confidence in himself has been pretty thoroughly shaken up. But did he really need to go to freakin' Alaska? Edward always goes to the extremes. He either has no more emotions than a rock, or he's the most over-wrought basket-case you ever saw. And it's only gotten worse, the longer I've known him. What he doesn't get is that being made aware of the fact that you have a weakness doesn't automatically mean that you will succumb to it. I can see hints of two possible futures for Bella Swan, based on what I can see of her sister's future. Whether it's good or bad can only depend on my brother's strength of will. However, I think it will end well. I can feel it, because my original vision hasn't changed. Edward, and I, side by side, while I'm holding a giggling Katrina Swan in my arms. She wasn't that much older than she is now, and I _**want**_ that future, because of all the good things I can sense behind it.

Two families are about to get a big dose of magic injected into their lives. One will get the common everyday sort of wonder that they thought they'd lost forever. And the other will see into a world that their species has forgotten about. I want that. And I especially want to see Edward dressed as Santa Claus. Okay, as Santa's younger brother, but he still had on a red velvet hat and coat with white fur trim in my vision, and my life won't be complete until the day that becomes a reality. Of course Edward wouldn't consider where that future leads to be all that great either, which is why he isn't going to find out about it until it's too damn late for him to turn away from it.

I'd recognized Bella Swan as holding a part of the key to our future, and we held the key to hers. The other part lay with the little girl who had been beside her that day at Walmart. From the moment I'd seen her, I had to know who she was. I just hadn't known where to look.

After everyone settled down from Edward's abrupt departure, I went online and started digging through Arizona vital statistics and through more recent school registrations here in Forks. Sure enough, there she was, Katrina Alexis Swan, age five. Mother, Renee Swan, father Randolph 'Smith'. My respect for Charlie Swan jumped quite a bit in those thirty minutes or so I spent poking around, because from what I could see he'd stepped right up to the plate for his ex-wife's reproductive misadventure. He'd given her his name, and supported her just like he'd supported his biological daughter Bella. Checking the newspaper archives against what I'd overheard in the cafeteria I found it in only a couple of minutes, a small article in the Arizona Republic; Phil and Renee Dwyer, honeymooning in Mexico, a boating accident, a catastrophic injury, long-term recovery, prognosis questionable. We'd have to see about that eventually. I'd talk to Carlisle. In the meantime I knew who I wanted to talk to.

I cleared my history and shut down my computer, then sought out my husband; finding him in his study off of our bedroom.

"Jazz? I'm going out for a while."

He frowned. He was still getting emotional backwash from the family over Edward's abrupt departure, from Esme especially; and oddly enough, Rosalie. Having me nearby helped him stay in balance.

"Hunting?" he asked. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No-o," I said, drawling the word slightly. I'd considered trying to fib, but fibbing to my man was difficult at best, and not something to be done lightly, certainly not over this. "It's more like I'm curious about something. So I want to go and see it. If you want to come with me you'll have to stay back. Stop when I tell you to and wait for me."

He shrugged. He was curious now himself, but willing to play along. Standing, he turned towards the French doors at the rear of his office as he reached for my hand. "Alice and I are going out," he said in a conversational voice. "We'll be back in a while." Murmurs of acknowledgement arouse from various places in the house, and like a shot we were out the doors over the balcony, and running hell bent for leather, as my husband would occasionally say. He let me take the lead. It took us only a few minutes to reach the vicinity of the Swan house. My vision told me that the object of my curiosity would be exiting the house shortly on a mission to have some fun, while her sister attended to the boring chore of cooking dinner. Slowing as we approached, I finally stopped Jasper a hundred yards out.

"Not that I think you'd have a problem, Jazz, but you really should hunt before you do something like this, and you haven't. We'll do it on the way home. So stay here and listen. I won't be too long."

Jasper looked nonplussed, but did as I asked nonetheless. One thing about mated vampires, distrusting your mate is an oxymoron. It isn't a part of our makeup. It's a good thing that we're equally incapable of betraying our mate; otherwise the situation could get very ugly very quickly.

I moved forward quickly, to within human hearing range, then slowed my approach. I didn't want to frighten the child. I simply wanted to talk to her. I scaled a fir tree, right at the edge of visibility and watched as she came charging out the backdoor of the house. I watched amused as she dashed in circles in the yard. She reminded me of a young filly, kicking her heels up for the first time out in the pasture. That lasted for only a few circuits until, heart pounding loud enough that even Jasper could probably hear it, she slowed to begin a more detailed examination of her surroundings. Eventually however, she settled down on a woodpile behind the garage and began to study the forest pensively. I knew that I had a window of only a few minutes, at most, before her ever alert sister realized that she was out of sight, so I swung silently, from branch to branch, until I reached the ground. After that I walked forward quickly, making enough noise to alert her to my presence, but not enough to scare her into running away. I could hear her heart-rate pick up. She was frightened.

"Hello?" I called out softly.

"Who's that?" she replied in a quavering voice.

Stepping out into the open, yet blocked from the view of the house, I smiled brightly. "Hi, I'm Alice."

She stared at me for a long moment and then smiled back at me. "Wow you're pretty. Really pretty. The second pretty person I've seen since I got here. I saw a really pretty lady at the Walmart the other day."

I giggled. Yes, she really _was_ as precious as my visions had made me think she was. "That was probably my mom. Did she get in the silver car?" She nodded vigorously.

"Yep, a really shiny silver car."

"Then that was my mom. I was in the back seat. I saw you."

The little girl frowned and withdrew a short distance. "I'm not s'pposed to talk to strangers, which is silly, 'cause I can always tell which ones are nice and which ones are mean, but Sissy will still get mad at me."

I frowned. The last thing I wanted to do was mess with something that should be basic survival programming for all children…but wasn't. "I'm not a stranger, I'm Alice. But your Sissy is right. Even if you can tell the good ones from the bad ones," _which sounds suspiciously like a talent to me, _I thought to myself, "by the time they're close enough for you to read, they're too close to be safe." I straightened up abruptly as the vision hit me. "Listen, your daddy will be home in a minute, and your sister will be looking for you. I really just wanted to meet you and say hi."

Her eyes got round. "You came to see me? Why?"

She held her ground as I closed the distance between us so I could reach out and touch her hair gently. Out on the street I heard a car engine approaching.

"I just know things sometimes, which is how I know that you and I and your sister will become great friends. Best friends. I get impatient. Something that wonderful I like to start as soon as possible." I leaned forward quickly and kissed her cheek as I heard the car door slam. I inhaled deeply. What an odd combination. Honey and sage.

"Can I tell Sissy about you?" she asked.

I smiled. "Nah, let it be a surprise when I finally meet her. We go to school together, you know. We'll meet soon enough." _Once my brother gets his head out of his ass,_ I thought.

"Will I see you again?"

The backdoor opened. "Kat?"

I leaned in and whispered, "Count on it," before I turned and faded into the forest.

"KATRINA ALEXIS SWAN!"

My new best friend stared after me a long silent moment before turning and running towards her now exasperated and frightened sister.

TBC

_AN3: Feedback feeds the muse._


	8. Chapter 8

_AN1: Taking time out from writing another story to post. Just a little deeper peek into what makes Alice Cullen tick...aside from Jasper that is. Oh, and implied lemons. Very mild._

Charlie's POV

Supper was mostly silent. Bella was mad at Kat for wandering out of sight and not coming when called, and Kat was just mad. Not that I wasn't on Bella's side on this one. Had it been me, I'd have been out the door with my gun in my hand. Probably not the best idea, but when it's your kid, panic will over-rule cop training every time. However, none of that takes care of the fact that Kat is mad about…something. So I do what every good parent does. I try to redirect her attention. Glancing at the refrigerator I see the results of her first day at school. It's been a long time since I've had a refrigerator art gallery, and even then I didn't have a full time artist. Rather than sink into self-pity over the past, I looked at Kat and smiled.

"You made some pretty pictures, Honey."

Kat looked at them briefly and shrugged. "I guess."

"You guess? They're wonderful! I picked out one that had what was obviously Bella's truck in it and pointed at it. "I love this one."

She smiled slightly.

"Is this me?" I asked, pointing at the tallest figure with a star on its chest. I don't think my mustache is that big, but what the hell.

Kat nodded, smiling more readily now.

"And this is Bella, and you?" I added as I moved down the line. Then I squinted at the brown blob on the end. "And is that a…squirrel?"

Oops. Apparently. Not. Kat's face closed up and she looked at her sister. "Can I go upstairs?"

Bella sighed and nodded. "Yes, go on, Kat. I'll be up to do my homework once I clean up."

With that she left abruptly.

Bella sighed again. "I'm sorry dad. Everything just sort of went to pieces just as you got home."

"I gathered that," I responded. "What I didn't get was what happened."

My oldest daughter sighed yet again. "I happened. When Kat wandered out of sight behind the garage, I got scared, and when she didn't answer my call immediately, I freaked on her."

"Did you spank her?"

Bella looked horrified. "Oh my god no! I wouldn't do that. I just got really mad. Then Kat got really mad back. Then we had to come in here and eat dinner. I messed up, first in letting her out of my sight, and second by flipping out on her when she didn't come immediately when called."

I chuckled. "It'll be okay, Bells. Trust me. I didn't have enough time with you when you were younger, but I seem to remember screwing up more than once, and much as I loved Renee, I know damn well that she wasn't a perfect mother and look how well you turned out."

Bella blushed and rolled her eyes. "Dad, that isn't exactly a ringing endorsement."

I snorted with laughter. "You know, Bella, it's possible to push self-deprecation too far. Say something like that about yourself again and I might try to see if you really are too big to spank. All I'm saying is that this isn't a tragedy. Kat'll be over it by tomorrow, and life will go on. You've only had this mother gig for a couple of days, Bells. Cut yourself some slack. It's not like you weren't doing the very same things back in Arizona that you are now. Only the location has changed. In Phoenix, you had Renee to backstop you, here it's me. We may not have been the greatest parents, but we've got experience."

I jumped in shock as my daughter gave me an unaccustomed hug, but I gave as good as I got. As I pulled out of our little Hallmark moment I asked the question that had been bothering me since Kat had left.

"That wasn't a squirrel, was it?" I pointed indicating the brown blob.

Bella giggled. "No, that's her puppy, Larry."

I snorted in wonder and squinted at the brown blob. "She wants a dog?"

"I wanted time to warn you so that you could steel yourself against her wheedling powers. She's wanted a puppy ever since she was old enough to know what they were, but Renee is allergic, so that was out. However, you're fresh meat. If she brings the pout and the tears to bear before you're ready for them, you'll be helpless. Phil still can't stand up to her a lot of the time."

I laughed out loud. "You know that might not be a bad idea."

Bella choked and her eyes grew round. "Are you serious?"

I shrugged back at her. "Why not? Think about it. A big enough dog could defend her against any of the critters that sometimes haunt these woods, or at least stall them long enough so that she could get away. If she gets lost it could track her down. If it's with her when she's out of your sight, like she was today, it's likely to answer your call, even if she doesn't. And it will keep her occupied."

Bells was staring at me like I'd grown a second head, and I chuckled. "Let me look into it Bells. I have a couple of prospects in mind already."

"I'm not walking a dog in the rain," she said firmly.

Oh yes she would, but that's another discussion for another day. "I understand that. Now, why don't you go do your homework? You cooked. The least I can do is clean up. And for the record, that was a terrific meal. I never realized how boring my diet had become."

She smiled gratefully, yet still managed to look unconvinced on the issue of the dog.

I ignored her then, turning to clean up the kitchen, put the leftovers away…I knew I'd be taking them in my lunch tomorrow…and washing the dishes.

"Bella, kick on the TV on your way upstairs, would you? If I can't watch, I can at least listen."

A minute later the mellifluous strains of ESPN floated into the kitchen, followed by the creak of the stairs.

Jasper's POV

My wife has officially lost it. We've left her mysterious errand behind, an errand which proved to be a very small human girl. Now we're going for take-out venison, since there's nothing else handy, and if her mood were any higher I'd say she was stoned. And vampires can't get stoned. Uh oh, there went a mood change…

"Get that look off your face, Jasper Whitlock."

"What look?

"The look that says you're mentally taking my measurements for a straight-jacket. _That_ look."

Oh. "Well, Sweetheart, you have to admit that it's a little weird."

Alice grinned. "Weird isn't even the half of it, you lovely man." She paused, her nostrils flaring. I could smell them too. She dropped into her hunting crouch and began to move forward stealthily, our conversation forgotten. I followed, and not just because I was thirsty. There's nothing sexier on this Earth that my Alice in hunting mode.

One hour, five deer (three for me and two for her), and two rounds of scorching lovemaking amid the damp ferns later I rolled over and began drawing patterns on her stomach with my finger-tips. She giggled and propped herself up on her elbows. My god, she was beautiful!

"More?"

I shook my head with a grin. "Nope. No ma'am. Just enjoying the view."

She flopped back. "Well, okay, if you say so." She was silent a moment then said, "Still think I'm crazy?"

I shrugged. "On the face of it, yes, but then again, you always have reasons for what you do, no matter how crazy it looks."

She got that 'visioned out' look. Not that she was having one, but that she was studying a previous one, looking for clues. She nodded to herself abruptly and looked at me.

"Jazz, I need you to trust me. The fewer heads I have thinking about this when Edward gets back, the better I'll like it. The better I can keep a lid on it and let things develop the way that they're supposed to."

I smirked at her. "Weren't you meddling a little while ago?"

She shrugged, which did interesting things to her breasts, which did further interesting things to my interest in the conversation.

"Yes, but I couldn't help myself. If I have to wait, I wanted a little…taste to tide me over."

My eyebrows rose…among other things. "Taste?"

"Not that kind of taste, you idiot," she sighed.

"Okay, I trust you. How could I not?" I rumbled, sliding forward to cover her body with mine. "Now, how about a taste of something else?"

She giggled again. "I thought you were done?"

"With you?" I growled. "Never."

Alice's POV

God, how I love Jasper. Not the least because the big dope loves me to distraction and he's willing to put up with my little foibles. Like my habit of playing 'I've got a secret', when I really _do_ have a secret that could range from the earth-shattering to the mundane. Not that we've been too much with the earth-shattering the last however many decades. Face it. We're in a rut. I didn't really see it until Edward bolted after getting downwind of Bella Swan. And I was only getting an inkling of it when I saw Katrina coming out of the Walmart. I still don't have the whole picture, but the parts I can see just make me want to see more like nothing has in a long time.

Most of our kind, by far the vast majority of us, are content with their lot. Considering themselves to be far above the humans, whom they see only as food, and only occasionally as fodder to become progeny. By and large they lead what I've come to see as empty sterile lives, devoid of meaning beyond finding the next kill. Here and there one may settle long enough to absorb some culture into their perfect memories, but sooner later their contempt for humans and their careless feeding habits will force them to move on. The 'kill whom we will, when we will' lifestyle is suitable only for nomads.

Only we, and our Denali cousins, have found a way to recover some of what was taken from us by our change. I don't think any of the others realize it other than Carlisle and me, with Edward trembling on the edge of discovery now, but humanity isn't about being a member of a species. It isn't about having warm blood and a pulse. I daresay that Edward is far more human right now than some of those that he fed on during the days of his rebellion. He was probably more human than they were _while_ he was feeding on them. Which is really beside the point.

The point is that we're all about to turn a page, one that some would find mundane, yet which to us will be earth-shattering. My family is going to remember another part of what they lost, and we'll be the better for it. Our hearts may never beat again, but human is as human does. We can all learn to be more human, given sufficient reason. And I found a big part of my reason today, wearing dirty sneakers, and bib overalls with a Dora the Explorer logo on the front. Shopping, I need to go shopping.

TBC

_AN2: Feedback gives me the warm fuzzies._


	9. Chapter 9

_AN: Here and there in this chapter we have our first bits of vintage SM salted in the text, which I herewith acknowledge. There will be larger chunks in later chapters as I start bending canon into the shape I want it to be. Have fun in this chapter, folks. Edward, our masochistic lion, won't...or not much anyway._ ;-)

Bella's POV

It didn't take me long to clear away my homework since the coursework at Forks High School was actually some weeks behind where I'd been in Phoenix. There's a definite advantage to being a bookish wallflower. With no one pestering you, it makes AP coursework a snap. I sighed. Of course there was a disadvantage to being a bookish wallflower too. No friends. Lots of acquaintances, but no real friends. That was why I'd left no one behind in Phoenix. There would be no 'missing you' phone calls, letters, texts, or emails. The only people who could possibly miss me would be Phil and Renee, and they had enough to occupy their time without holding my hand long-distance.

"Stop it, just stop it! You're going to work yourself into a mood here, if you don't watch it," I snarled at myself. One self-absorbed jerk gives you the evil eye and you're wallowing in teen angst. Something you've always left to your peers.

But I was still left with wondering just what had happened there. What had I done to set Edward Cullen off, aside from breathe the same air as him? I sighed. Whatever it was, I wasn't going to find the answer tonight and probably wouldn't until I bearded the lion in his den tomorrow in biology. So, let's stick a pin in it for now, Bella.

Getting up, I walked into Kat's room. She was laying on the throw rug at the foot of her bed, humming to herself tunelessly, while working her way through a page of her Dora coloring book.

"Time to get ready for bed, Sweetie."

"Are you still mad at me, Sissy?"

I sighed as I thought of the irony my mother would see in this situation. "No Kitty Kat, I never was mad at you. I was just scared, and it came out as looking mad." Okay, I'd been mad at her, but I needed her to understand.

"Why were you scared?"

"Because you weren't where I could see you, and you didn't answer right away. I thought something bad had happened to you."

"Oh."

She got up and walked over to me, holding her arms up. Kat was getting too big for me to do this often, but there were always exceptions to the rule. With a grunt I lifted her from the bottom as her arms slid around my neck and she planted a damp kiss on my cheek.

"I'm sorry I scared you, Sissy."

"And I'm sorry I acted all mad."

Kat put her head on my shoulder. "Will you read to me tonight?"

"It's pretty late, Sweetie."

"I don't want a whole story, just a little bit of one."

I smiled silently. How little of a 'little bit' was, we'd see. "Which story?"

"Where the Wild Things Are"?

I set her on her feet and said, "Okay, you go wash up and brush your teeth. Get back here as fast as you can, and you can have two chapters."

And she was gone like greased lightning.

"Make sure that you're clean Katrina, because I'll be checking!" I called after her.

Forty minutes later, after three chapters of "Where the Wild Things Are", she was sound asleep. I tucked her in, kissed her goodnight, checked her nightlight, and turned off her overhead. I left the door open, in case she needed me during the night.

Suddenly I was exhausted as the day caught up with me. I couldn't think about anything, but my bed. Not future puppies or mean-spirited boys. I only wanted to sleep. No sooner did my head hit the pillow, than I was out like the proverbial light, and tonight Kat slept in her own bed. Tomorrow was another day. I would deal with Edward Cullen then.

Alas it was not to be.

When I arrived at school on Tuesday, after dropping Kat off, I saw his family in the parking lot next to his car, but the tall bronze-haired figure I'd hoped to see was missing. He wasn't at lunch, nor was he in biology. The rumor mill reported that he was out sick, but some part of my mind kept telling me that it wasn't a virus that was keeping him away from school. It was me. The larger part of my mind told me that I was being a self-important fool. That my presence or lack thereof should have no impact on anyone, let alone someone like Edward Cullen, but my instincts weren't listening. There was something about me that he found unbearable. The thought depressed me more as the question of 'why' lingered unanswered.

The days came and went with little change for the rest of the week. Kat and I were settling in. We called mom and talked to her every other day, as much for her sake as for ours. The days remained cold, gray, and rainy. There were times that I found Kat looking out her bedroom window into the trees beyond our backyard with a melancholy expression on her face, like she was looking for something and was disappointed when she didn't find it. No amount of prying would get her to talk, so I chose my mother's route. I would do what mom did with me and out-wait her.

Wednesday yielded one nugget of information. My father apparently believes that Dr. Carlisle Cullen, Edward's father, can walk on water. Apparently he could be in private practice on Park Avenue, or stand as the head of thoracic surgery at Johns Hopkins. Instead, his wife's love of small town life has him working at the county hospital for a pittance of what he could earn elsewhere, something for which my father is apparently very grateful. That, and he's upset with the way he thinks that 'some people' have been badmouthing him and his family. Truthfully the only people I've heard badmouthing the Cullens have been Mike and Jessica, and that's just high school politics. Ostracize those who are different. Of course it doesn't help a lot if they seem to _want_ to be ostracized. But that's teenage stuff. Whatever has Charlie feeling defensive on the Cullens' behalf is a lot bigger and closer to home than some teenage gossip.

Another fact to add to the growing pile of things that don't fit into the puzzle that is Edward Cullen.

To occupy my mind I started to read Wuthering Heights again, when I wasn't busy keeping up with Kat, Charlie, and my other school work. The novel seemed to suit my underlying mood.

The weekend came and went, with Charlie taking some time to go fishing while I cleaned house, did laundry, and planned the menu for the coming week. By Sunday afternoon the freezer in the kitchen was full of casseroles ready for the oven, and I'd made a roasted chicken. Two chickens in fact, one of them being slated for Charlie's lunches in one form or another over the coming week. In my book, my roasted chicken together with some steamed vegetables beat a take-out burger when it came to Charlie's arteries, every single time.

Monday morning came and I arrived at school only to freeze in my truck seat as I saw a familiar figure in the parking lot. He was here! It was time to face the music and find out exactly what his issue was so I could safely put him out of my mind. Yeah, right. That was it. Out of my mind.

Edward's POV

The choice to return had been surprisingly easy, once I realized that I really _had_ no choice. I missed my family, Tanya was once again annoying me with her unsubtle pursuit of me, and I was being haunted. No matter where I looked or what I tried to distract myself with, she was always there. The Swan girl. Without her scent to cloud the issue, I still had to deal with the fact that, for some impossible reason, I found her intriguing. Up north, in the silence and solitude of Alaska, she had been everywhere. Her eyes, her hair, the symmetry of her pale heart-shaped face where always before my eyes.

When I arrived home I was greeted like the prodigal son. Esme's welcome was overwhelming, to be followed closely by her scolding for my leaving in the first place. It brought back bitter-sweet memories of my homecoming after I'd ended my resistance to Carlisle's chosen lifestyle. Neither time did I feel like I deserved the ecstatic welcome I received, so ashamed was I of my reasons for leaving, both times.

It was Monday morning, and it was time to face my personal demons. Or demon, rather. I realized it was unfair to place such a burden upon the slender shoulders of Isabella Swan. This was my problem, not hers, but the petulant child somewhere deep inside of me still insisted on trying to blame her for moving here. My family was supportive of my determination to stay and fight my instincts. Oddly, while Alice was the most supportive, I was left with the distinct impression that she was hiding something from me again. Alice was very skilled at hiding things from me. That's not to say that I couldn't eventually find out what I wanted to know, but I had to make her think about it first. And so far I'd had no luck at that. So we were in sort of a stalemate.

I stalked Bella Swan all day through other minds and senses of other people, until lunchtime, when we would have to at least be in the same room together. At first I made a show of ignoring her, even though I was concerned by the fact that she wasn't eating, while her classmates were consuming every last morsel of food at their disposal. Was she ill? Then, when Jessica Stanley tattled on me for staring at her, she determinedly kept her face turned away from me, not even glancing at me.

"I don't think he likes me," she'd said.

I couldn't say that she was wrong, as I was looking forward to my sojourn with her in Biology with little enthusiasm, but at the same time, my stomach twisted at her words as something in me ached to deny them. I hadn't told my family about my haunted stay in the land of the midnight sun. I was afraid that they would think that the Swan girl's scent had caused my mind to snap, if I revealed the degree to which I cared what she thought of me, or how I wished for nothing more than to see her again. None of those things made the slightest sense to me, even though they were true and I knew it. Why should this girl affect me so powerfully, beyond her luxurious and mouthwatering scent?

"Shall we?" Rosalie said, standing eight minutes before the bell was to ring. Silently we all stood up, dumped our prop-food in the waste cans, and made our way out of the cafeteria. Emmett and Rose pealed off right away to head off for Emmett's least favorite class of the day. Gym. He hated having to suppress his competitive nature in order appear to be a human, and a physically sub-par human at that. He hated it.

Jasper and Alice walked me to Mr. Banner's classroom. Where Emmett and Rose were a little smug about my recent weakness, Jasper was supportive. The unnatural calm with which I was facing the coming class hour said so. He understood somewhat, what I was going to face. He faced it every day. I sighed. I was hunting more often now, but I did so alone so I didn't have to share the evidence of my weakness with the family. Maybe I should invite Jasper along tonight. He and I hadn't had occasion to do much male bonding lately. It was time to change that, even if we were bonding over our shared character flaw. It would help him, and I owed him for being here now. Like I owed Alice. She'd promised to watch my immediate future for any indication that my control would slip, and text me, anywhere, anytime. There was something else going on as well, because in her mind she was currently translating French pop-music lyrics into Farsi. Those were some pretty heavy mental gymnastics she had going on there, which means that she had something that she _really_ wanted to hide from me. What she didn't realize is that she had a 'tell'. The closer we got to Biology, the more intense her efforts became. This worried me, because in my mind that related what she was trying to hide directly to Bella Swan. Would she hide a massacre from me if there was no hope? Would she let me walk in that room knowing that I would fail? I didn't think so, but…

"What do you see, Alice? Am I going to kill her?"

She blinked, startled, as we halted just down the hall from Biology, and for just a second her block flickered. Not long enough to see anything substantial, but long enough to tell me that she wasn't hiding a disaster. No, a bloodbath wouldn't have made her happy, and what I saw was Alice…smiling brightly.

"No, why do you ask?" she countered.

"You're shielding awfully hard, and I think it has something to do with Bella Swan."

She grinned, actually grinned. I'm facing an hour of torture like the Inquisition never imagined and she has the wherewithal to grin at me?

"Nope, brother dear, I can truthfully say that what I'm hiding has no bearing on your problem with your classmate. As for what I'm hiding, that's for me to know and you to die of frustration over."

I glared at her. Annoying little pixie. "So it has nothing to do with Bella Swan?" Not even a flicker this time.

"No," she said, merrily. "You'll be fine."

I sighed. "That depends on your definition of fine, doesn't it?"

She leaned in and kissed my cheek as she said softly, "I said you'll be fine, you big goof, and I meant fine."

The bell rang and the noise level in the school rose abruptly as the student body turned out of their classes. Soon it would be 'Hail Caesar' time…only I wouldn't be the one about to die. I cringed internally at the imagery and felt my stomach twist and my fear grow at the mere possibility of hurting Bella Swan. What was wrong with me?

Jasper took Alice's hand. "Let's go Milady, French class awaits you." He looked at me and my calm returned. "She's right you know," he said firmly. "Of all of us, only Carlisle can beat you at self-discipline and control. You'll be alright."

Together they walked off down the hall while I stood silently against the lockers. As attractive as we are to humans, we excel at being unobtrusive when we want to. We can hide in plain sight…as long as the sun isn't shining. I waited as the students ebbed and flowed around me, then the scent hit me as it wafted down the corridor, growing stronger, then finally passing over me like a tidal-wave as Bella, escorted by that odious boy Michael Newton and his equally disgusting cloud of fantasies, passed by on the way to Mr. Banner's room. I gave her time to get settled before I followed. I paused outside the door and took a deep breath. My last breath of clean air for an hour.

"Hail Caesar," I sighed.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

_AN1: Let's have some fun, and post twice in one day; just to see how high I can drive the numbers. ;-) This one was one of my smaller chapters, so I figure, what the frell, I'll give it to you now since you're all so patient with this fluffy little story. This will be the last for a few days. Note that there's some more original SM scattered around this chapter, and even though I've rewritten some iconic scenes to allow for the AU, the original structure can still be seen. That won't last much past the end of Midnight Sun in canon. Now, on with the show._

* * *

Edward's POV

I deliberately tried to make as much noise as I could when I approached our table. Given my previous behavior, I couldn't afford to frighten her further. Not only that, but a deeply buried part of me cried out _against_ frightening her further. The monster roared and hurled himself against his fetters as her scent made my throat burn, so I blamed him. Frightened prey could flee. Then I cringed inside as my mind shied violently away from any image of this girl as prey.

She was hunched over her notebook, doodling, when I came up to the table and dragged my chair out, being sure to make more noise than usual in the process. I studied her, trying to divine what was going on behind that curtain of hair that hid her face from me. My fingers twitched with the sudden desire to pull that hair back so that I could see the roses and cream skin of her cheek. When she remained focused on her doodling and didn't look up I decided to take some initiative.

"Hello", I said quietly.

Bella's POV

I jumped, I know I did. When that silky, honeyed voice said 'Hello' I jerked. I looked up startled; to see Edward Cullen looking at me with an openly friendly expression, wearing this crooked smile that gave me an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.

"I didn't have a chance to introduce myself last week. My name is Edward Cullen. You must be Bella Swan," he said with a politeness I'd never seen before – in anyone.

I felt like I'd fallen into an episode on one of those black and white DVD's of the "Outer Limits" that Renee loved so much, where someone else was controlling 'the horizontal' and 'the vertical'. What happened to the death glare? Had I only imagined it? My brain was fuzzy as it tried to consider my current subjective reality, so my mouth took advantage of its momentary freedom and out popped the first thing that came to mind.

"How do you know my name?" Swell, I couldn't think of something witty?

He laughed gently, and said, "Oh, I think everyone knows your name. The whole town's been waiting for you to arrive."

How does a laugh give you goose-bumps? I shook myself and focused instead on his answer. "No...I meant, why did you call me Bella?"

His smile faded slightly. "Do you prefer Isabella?"

"No, I like Bella," I said. "But I think Charlie — I mean my dad — must call me Isabella behind my back — that's what everyone here seems to know me as," I tried to explain, feeling like an utter moron.

"Oh." He let it drop as I looked away awkwardly.

After that the day's lab started and our conversation was limited to the phases of cellular mitosis. I got into this ridiculous one-sided competition with him, trying to prove that I could match him in identifying the slides we were looking at. I cheated; since I'd already done this lab back home in Phoenix. I was still supposed to be angry with him, so I felt kind lousy when he stood up for me in front of Mr. Banner, who seemed to think that I would be the dead weight at our lab table.

There was one truly odd moment. When we were doing the lab, our hands touched, his hand was cold as ice, so cold that I wondered if he ever wore gloves, and for just the briefest moment it was like sticking my finger in a light socket, then I jerked away. This wasn't some stray spark of static either. I know that he felt it too, because he made an obvious effort not to allow our skin to touch again. What _was_ that?

While we waited for the rest of the class to finish the lab he tried to open up the conversation again. With the weather of all things. Suddenly I didn't feel quite as lame in the conversation department as I explained my pathological aversion to the cold and wet as, all the while, I studied him. Something was different today; something besides the faint flush to his cheeks.

"If you dislike the weather so much, why move here at all?" he said, with an inquisitive look.

No one had been quite that blunt and demanding yet, so I felt compelled to answer; sort of.

"It's complicated."

"I think I can keep up," he pressed.

"My mother had an accident."

Edward's POV

I kept my expression bland yet friendly as I considered the spotty information that I'd gleaned from the minds of our schoolmates. There'd been precious little gossip to be found in adult minds on the issue. Apparently the Chief Swan wasn't exactly a man to over-share when it came to his troubles, or his family's troubles. All I really knew was that her mother had been hospitalized, apparently long enough to make caring for her children problematic. An accident?

"What happened?"

Bella sighed and looked sad. I yearned to do something, anything to make that look go away. Somewhere inside I noticed that I wasn't second guessing my feelings anymore when it came to this girl; which, of course, made me start again. What was happening to me?

"She remarried last September. They were on their honeymoon when it happened."

I didn't have to work too hard to look sympathetic. I'd never been in love, but I'd seen what it meant in the minds of my family. Having a loved one hurt was never good, but of all times for it to happen…

"They were honeymooning in Acapulco," she continued, as she looked away," when the catamaran they were day-sailing on was rammed by some rich idiot on a yacht who was drunk out of his mind at the time. Their boat got plowed under."

She looked back at me. Another girl might have broken down by now, but not Isabella Swan apparently. Aside from a faint glistening in her eyes, she was holding her own. Her voice had become stoic.

"My mom's husband Phil was okay, but Renee was seriously hurt. She was in the hospital down there for a long time, and up here almost as long. Now she's in rehab trying to learn to walk again, and they may have to take her back for more surgery." She leaned forward, resting her elbow on the desk and her cheek on the palm of her hand. She seemed to be relaxing a bit in my presence. I liked that.

"Anyway, Phil is a good guy. Aside from Charlie, one of the best guys I know. He'll stand by Renee to the bitter end, but he's new to being a dad and he already gave up his career as a minor league ballplayer so he could look after my mom. I guess it seemed like a bit much to ask for him to look after me and my sister too, so Renee and Charlie conspired to have my little sister and I come and stay with Charlie for a while."

Somehow I found it hard to believe that this girl could possibly be so high maintenance that she needed to be 'looked after'. "You don't agree?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, I do, I just like to arrive at my own decisions. I love my mom, but I've pretty much been the primary caregiver in our house since Kat came along. I'd pretty much resigned myself to looking after my family, including Phil, until mom was back on her feet."

"That hardly seems fair," I observed.

She shrugged. "And your point is?"

Ah, an important bit of data on Bella Swan. She was selfless. She placed her own needs far below the needs of others in order of priority. "Well, it's hardly fair to expect a young girl to carry that sort of load, while she's still a child herself."

She raised a dark eyebrow. "Haven't you heard? Life isn't fair. And I'm not a child. I haven't been a child for a very long time. Mom says that I'm an old soul, something she got from this tarot reading thing that she was into once. Anyway, I'm a firm believer in the lemonade theory."

"Lemonade?"

She smiled faintly and the world seemed to brighten. "Yep, when life hands you lemons, you make lemonade."

I found myself wearing an unwilling and unaccustomed grin as I stared at her intently. For a moment, just a moment, the scent of her blood seemed to fade just a bit. "That sounds like 'every cloud has a silver lining' to me, and we have abundant cloud cover here," I said, as I thought, _"Otherwise we wouldn't be here."_

I suddenly felt alarmed as she seemed to stare at me blankly for a minute. What was wrong? Had I frightened her? I cursed myself as I remembered my smile a moment earlier. I'd flashed my teeth. Something that was known to scare off grown men let alone young girls. Why wasn't she running away screaming? After a frozen heartbeat her eyes seemed to clear and she spoke.

"Did you get contacts?"

I froze.

Bella's POV

Oh crap! He was doing this thing with his eyes and my impulse control switched off again, so my brain once again took advantage of its lack of supervision and engaged my mouth. He looks like a deer in the headlights. But his eyes _are_ different. Not the obsidian black of last week. They're warm, golden, almost topaz colored. The change is obvious. I was so caught up in them that I almost missed it when he spoke.

"No," he said abruptly.

"Are you sure?" I responded, once again hearing that cold voice from the Outer Limits intro. Something was off here. I just didn't know what.

"I think I would remember getting contacts. It's just the light in here," he snapped. The bell rang and he scooped his books up and left without a goodbye. I guess our brief camaraderie was over, and Edward Cullen was an even bigger mystery than he had been before.

Mike Newton walked me to my gym class while bemoaning the difficulty of the lab that we'd just completed. Like Mr. Banner, he seemed to assume that Edward had carried me through. I disliked it when people think I'm stupid, so I corrected him, and then had to back and fill lest I hurt his feelings. I sighed. High school was already complicated enough, why did it have to include social relationships too?

"Cullen seemed friendlier today," he noted.

I pretended indifference. "I wonder what his problem was last week." The last thing I wanted to do was discuss Edward Cullen with my ever-attentive puppy Mike. Later in gym class I blessed those puppy-like tendencies as he faithfully covered for my uncoordinated butt on the volleyball court.

After gym the usual torrential rain had faded to a drizzle. Not enough to make me use an umbrella, but enough to make me not waste time getting to my truck. I was happier once I made it to the truck and got its heater going. Shaking my hair out I luxuriated in the warm dry air. It was then that I noticed that I had a spectator. Edward Cullen was leaning against his car, three cars down, watching me intently.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious I threw my truck into reverse and started to back out – only to narrowly miss taking out a battered Toyota Corolla that had the right-of-way. I jerked to a stop and waited for the Toyota to pass before backing out more carefully. As I passed the silver Volvo on my way out, I could see Edward Cullen shaking with silent laughter.

Stupid shiny Volvo driver.

TBC

_AN2: If you're so inclined, drop me a little feedback. If it's good, tell me. If it blows, well, tell me that too, but politely. ;-)_


	11. Chapter 11

_Good Saturday morning to you my dear readers. It's 41 minutes after midnight where I am and it's colder the hell here. I decided to post because I'm working through the weekend, and I have no clue when I'd have time to do so again. No Meyer in this one, unless you count "Stupid shiny Volvo driver", and I see that phrase as being so iconic now that it belongs to the fandom at large, and not SM. For those who don't know, I'm Team Edward, with a strong side-dish of Team Alice. ;-) Blessings on my sterling betas and much loved fic writing friends Im2xshy and jdficwriter...and on Cathy, whom we need to lure to the darkside. __Anyway, on with the show._

Bella's POV

I was in a mood when I arrived at Kat's school to pick her up. What Grandma would have called a snit. How dare he...laugh! I mean, so I'd nearly taken out a Toyota. What business was it of Mr. Split-Personality? Last week he looks like he wants to commit murder and this week he charms me into a puddle of mush; and then, not two minutes later, he snarls rudely, and bolts out of the classroom as if pursued by wolves. I took a few deep breaths as I waited for Kat. I'd been grumpy enough with her yesterday. She didn't deserve to see my temper two days in a row. Especially when today wasn't her fault. I growled under my breath. It was the fault of a certain mysterious, intriguing jerk…who looked like he did Tommy Hilfiger ads in his spare time. When he wasn't scaring me or making me…

"_Okay, hold it right there Isabella,"_ I thought. _"You're getting worked up over a boy. You never get worked up over a boy. Least of all a boy who wouldn't look twice at you." _

Yes, I needed to calm down and get some perspective. Whatever was going on with him, the conversation today had been just that. Polite conversation…until I asked about his eyes. And thinking about that just made my frustration spike again. What was the problem? So he had contacts. Did he believe that no one would notice? I was growling again. Damn it!

"Sissy?"

"Ahhhh!" I leapt right out of my skin again.

Kat giggled. "You're jumpy! Like yesterday! Were you thinking about nothing again?"

I stared at Kat for a moment. She took after her mom and sister. She was entirely too perceptive sometimes. That particular quirk, when combined with a good memory, had made her terrible twos a bit more terrible than most. I grinned as I remembered. The phrase 'time out' seemed to have been invented for Kat back then. Thank god she'd outgrown that phase.

I broke out of my senior moment and gave her a slight smile. "Yep, I was thinking about nothing again, Kitty Kat." Thinking about nobody, and if I didn't stop it, then nobody's name was mud at school tomorrow. I ground my teeth quietly. I had more important things to do than stress over a boy who was clearly out of my league. "Let's go, Sweetie. Charlie will be home soon, and we need to get dinner started."

"What are we having?"

"Hamburgers and French fries." The fries were baked and the burgers would be extra-lean beef, but what Charlie didn't know wouldn't hurt him. Now if I could just keep him from loading too much junk on them….

Kat's eyes glinted. "Yum!"

I relieved her of her backpack and got her into her booster seat, then climbed in my side and got the engine started. Kat chattered about her day all the way home. About her new friend Toni, about how Bobby Franks got put on time-out for being mean, and all about their project today. When we got to the house, Kat showed me with the fruit of her day's labor. I got a lump in my throat when she presented me with the world's most beautiful macaroni necklace. Some part of me felt like a thief, because it should have been Renee's, but Kat told me that she got her teacher to let her make two, so mom would get hers, just a little later. I spent a moment trying to imagine what clothes I had that went with my new red, blue, and yellow fashion accessory. There weren't any. But that didn't mean that I wasn't wearing it to school tomorrow.

Once we were home I shooed Kat upstairs to get cleaned up and get started on whatever activities she had for school, while I slipped the burgers under the broiler. A glance at the clock showed that I had a few minutes before Charlie showed up, so I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to try and purge the remainder of my day.

It wasn't working, so I started listing my issues. Did he have to be intriguing, infuriating, intimidating, handsome, AND unreachable all at the same time? Surely three out of five would have been enough. I felt my temper starting to flare again and stepped outside on Charlie's dinky back porch, hoping that the cool evening air would help. It didn't. I could remember vividly the heated intensity of his eyes as they were focused on me, and the half-formed fantasies they had triggered. What was bothering him about me? It had to be me, didn't it? He didn't seem to have a problem with anyone else. Just me. Damn it! Did he have to be so…so…so perfect!

In my frustration I kicked a post holding up the porch. Three things immediately became apparent. 1) That post was a lot more solid than I thought. 2) I can kick harder than I thought (or I was just madder than I thought). And 3) I needed to replace my tennis shoes.

"Eeee-y-ouch!"

I hopped around on one foot for several minutes, venting a hissing stream of cuss words that I didn't usually use, and then I gathered the tattered remains of my dignity and limped inside to check on the burgers. No one was worth this kind of stress, certainly no boy was. Tomorrow I would banish Edward Cullen from further consideration. He simply wasn't worth my frustration…or my toes.

Alice's POV

Perched in my favorite fir tree on the edge of the Swan property, I watched with considerable amusement as Bella limped back inside after hopping around like a rain dancer trying to end a five-year drought. It was all I could do to keep from bursting into giggles. Who knew that humans could be so entertaining? I looked forward to being her friend one day soon. Her display of creative cussing alone was worth the price of admission, but the real prize was the insertion of the phrase 'stupid shiny Volvo driver' into her stream of expletives. It didn't take a genius to figure out who she was talking about. Oh! This was going to be more fun than I'd had in…well…decades! And that was before I got to know Kat better.

I saw Charlie arrive home and go inside. I also heard him inquire about Bella's limp. Bella gave him some cock and bull story about stubbing her toe on the front porch steps. If she was going to be hanging out with us soon, she'd have to learn to lie better than that; because I'm pretty sure that Charlie didn't buy it, but he wasn't worried enough to press the matter either. Flipping through Kat's immediate future the images that I saw of Charles Swan made me appreciate him more and more. He was a good man. I'd have to do something nice for him some day soon.

That day might be sooner than I thought. I can almost feel the future trembling with expectation. Edward, the sneak, has started playing this 'free association' game with me. He'll drop a random word in the middle of a conversation to see what, if any, mental tangents it would trigger. The thing is, I always know when our little shrink-wannabe is going to do it, so I always have something outrageous on tap to think about. The last time it was Jasper naked. There's no reason for me to suffer while I make Edward suffer.

Three branches below me, Jasper spoke.

"You know this is nuts, right?"

I looked down at him and smiled. "I thought we already had this discussion, Sweet Pea." My smile broadened into a grin. "I thought that we'd already agreed that I was half a bubble off of plumb."

"Just checking, Darlin'. How long?"

I looked ahead briefly. "Just until they go to bed. About six hours. Once they're asleep I want to slip in and see my little friend." I slipped down a few branches to join him. "You're being really sweet about this, but you don't have to stay you know. You can go do something else."

Jasper shook his head. "Nope, all I had going tonight was flipping a coin over which Ken Burns documentary to watch for the umpteenth time; "Baseball" or "The Civil War". It was either that, or kicking Emmett's ass at Halo II again. I'd rather spend time with you."

His arm slid up my back and around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. "Thanks," I replied, backing it up with a kiss."

"Six hours is a long time to be hanging out up here in the treetops, Ali."

I was rubbing my cheek against his shoulder. "Call me a snoop, but I like listening to them. It's…nice. I can't ever remember having a family before we found ours. And I never really had a reason to be interested before, other than casually. This isn't just about what I've seen; that I'll love them. I _like_ these people Jasper. I want to know them."

He chuckled softly. "I don't mind, Darlin', I really don't, but it's still a long time to hang out in the treetops."

I giggled and started humming the melody from an old Jim Croce song, and when I got to the right place I sang, "All the downtown ladies call him treetop lover. All the men just call him Sir."

He chuckled again as he gave me a playful squeeze. "Are you dropping hints? If I recall right, things didn't turn out that well in that song."

I nudged him. "That's because ol' Leroy starting messing with some other guy's woman. You don't have that problem…now do you, Major Whitlock?"

He leaned in and kissed me emphatically. "No, I do not Mrs. Cullen-Whitlock." He paused. "You know, Rose is going to have a cow over this…right?"

I laughed. "Jazzy, our dear sister will have a whole herd of cattle, one at a time, horns first, when what I'm doing comes out, but it won't matter. She'll be as helpless as the rest of us against the tide of events. All we have to do is have Emmett keep her occupied long enough for her to come around."

"I don't suppose you'd care to tell me…" he started.

"Nope," I stopped him. "It's not that I don't trust you. I just don't trust Edward. The less you know, the less you have to hide, and the less he can find out. Besides, I only have part of the picture. There are still choices in the balance. I can see some end results, but not how they're arrived at. Change is coming though, Jazz, and soon."

He sighed and replied, "Okay, I have no argument there," then his look turned sly, "but I seem to recall a line about treetop lovers…and we still have hours to kill." He was nuzzling my neck.

"Jasper," I said with some asperity. "We've tried this before. We always break the tree, or fall out of it."

He was nuzzling more slowly, and his scent was doing predictable and delicious things to me, somewhere down south. "If at first you don't succeed," he muttered, "try, try again."

I grinned and slipped off the branch, and out of his grasp, only to grasp a branch twenty feet further down. "Nope, not up here, however, if you're still game, the last one to the ground and out of their clothes is a rotten egg," and I took off.

Bella's POV

It was past Kat's bedtime. Aside from my fractured toe, and my resolve to grant Edward Cullen less influence in my life, it had been an uneventful evening. I hadn't been able to stop Charlie from going crazy on his hamburger, but I still declared myself the conditional victor in the battle of healthy eating. And tomorrow it would be green beans and ham hocks. Small ones.

Charlie was parked in front of the TV, the kitchen was cleaned up, and I'd just finished my homework. God, how I hate trigonometry. Okay, I don't hate it; I'm just having a harder time than I'm used to. It wasn't this hard in Phoenix. The math teacher, Mr. Varner, sucks. Collecting my stuff and putting it in my bag, I walked into the living room to see Charlie dozing. Apparently ESPN wasn't as riveting as he'd hoped. I nudged him awake.

"Hey, dad?"

He jerked awake. "Huh?"

"I'm gonna head up and get Kat to bed. Don't make me have to put you to bed too."

He stretched and then grinned tiredly. "I guess I will head up. The price of getting old, Bells, is that your get-up-and-go gets up and goes quicker."

I snorted at him and smiled. "Maybe if you weren't on call 24/7 for every 'cat in tree' incident in town, you'd get more sleep."

He shook his head. "It's the price of authority, kiddo. It goes with the job."

I cringed a little inside and sighed. 'The job' had been part of Renee's reason for leaving. Hearing her sentiments coming out of my mouth couldn't have been nice. "I know dad, I just don't want you to run yourself into the ground. Kat will do that for you soon enough."

He grinned and gestured me up the stairs. "That's in the job description too, honey. That's why I get to be called daddy."

I went upstairs, smiling gently to myself. I promised myself silently to do better about calling Charlie, dad instead of Charlie. He hadn't had enough of that the last 17 years. I had some making up to do.

"You take the bathroom first, dad. I need to get Kat settled before I get in there."

Charlie shook his head. "Nope, I'm invoking my daddy rights. I'll tuck Kat in, you use the bathroom."

"Okay, thanks dad," I said gratefully, as I headed in the bathroom. Once I was out of his sight, I smirked. Charlie had no skills at bedtime story negotiation, or at least any skills he had were over a decade out of date. He was dead meat.

Surprisingly, fifteen minutes later, when I came out, Charlie was waiting in the hall with his stuff and, except for the night light, the lights in Kat's room were out. I looked between Charlie and the darkened room and back several times before he burst into chuckles.

"How?" I asked.

He smirked. "Sorry, trade secret. Daddies only." Then he slipped by me into the recently vacated bathroom.

I peeked in on Kat to be sure that she really was in bed, and then went about getting to bed myself. Before Charlie was even out of the bathroom, I was in bed and slipping towards sleep. This had been a busy day, and I was tired. My last conscious thought was that my parents had done the right thing sending us here. In time I'd have probably asked to come, if they hadn't seen it first. The crappy weather and certain annoying people aside, this place 'felt' right. I sighed and curled up around myself as sleep claimed me.

Alice's POV

Charlie and Bella were asleep, I could tell by their heartbeat and breathing. Someone else however was not. The house had been silent for nearly an hour when the back door slipped open and a small shape emerged.

"What the hell?" Jasper hissed. "What is she doing outside? Darlin', I'm not ready for this yet."

"You won't hurt her, Jazz," I whispered as I watched the child standing on the back porch.

"I hope not, but I don't want to test that until I have Emmett or Edward at my shoulder."

It hurt me that he didn't trust himself enough to trust _me_. He wouldn't hurt her. Just the same, I wanted him to be okay with this, so that meant going at _his_ pace. "Go on then, Jazz. Wait for me at the usual spot. I'll be with you shortly."

"Thanks, love you. Take your time." With that he kissed my cheek and he was gone, silently and swiftly.

"Hello?" said a soft wavering voice.

It took me a full second to realize that her voice wasn't wavering because she was scared. It was wavering because she was shivering and her teeth were chattering. She was cold. I hissed a low curse and emerged from the tree line, moving quickly, more quickly than a human, but still not a blur, up to the porch. "What are you doing out here?"

She shrugged. "I wanted to see you, Alice. I knew you were here. I could tell."

She could tell? I was officially boggled, and, as everyone knows, that doesn't happen to me too often.. A power indeed. "Well, this is no place to talk. Let's get you inside before you freeze."

She shivered. "Okay, but you gotta be quiet. Sissy and daddy will be really mad if they find out."

I grinned ruefully. They would be really mad when they _did_ find out, but I was prepared to accept that. "Okay, quietly."

She turned to open the door, only to find that it had locked behind her.

"Let me, Honey," I said. With my decades of practice, it took me all of 10 seconds to pick the lock. Job one, once Charlie got used to me was to chew him out for having such crappy locks with his daughters in the house. The Chief of Police should know better.

Once we were inside, I was in a hurry to get her into her bed. "Honey, let me carry you to bed. I'm really strong and no one will hear me."

"Okay." She was still shivering a little.

I scooped her up, and moved swiftly and silently up the stairs, finding her room by her scent. The smells in this house were incredible. Yes there was the usual gag-worthy scent of human food and cooking, but Bella, Charlie, and Kat overwhelmed it. Honey, sage, freesia, strawberries, fresh cut grass, and new snow; I inhaled deeply as I slipped her back into her bed and stretched out on the covers next to her.

"What did you mean that you could tell I was there, Sweetie?" I whispered close to her ear.

She shrugged. "I just can tell," she whispered back. "Like I know nice from mean, I can tell when a nice one is there once I know they're nice."

Yep, a gift, and a strong one at that, like her sister.

"Why didn't you come back?" she whispered. "I looked for you."

"Oh, I couldn't, Kat," I whispered back. "I wanted to though."

Finally realizing that I'd been using her name she asked, "You know my name?"

I giggled breathily. "Yep, I heard your sister the other day. Sorry I got you in trouble."

She shrugged. "That's okay. We made up."

This child was truly one of a kind. "You should get back to sleep. It's very late."

"Will you stay?" came the soft whisper.

"For a little while, but then I have to go or people will look for me. And I don't think that your father and sister would like finding me here."

So help me, she gave this very grown-up sigh. "I guess you're right." Then, of all things, she kissed me on the cheek, and didn't flinch. "I'm glad you're here."

"I'm glad too. Now go to sleep, Sweetie." I began to hum a breathy tuneless trill that soothed her. Her breathing started to slow. Then her eyes popped open for just a moment.

"Tell, your mom I said she's pretty."

"I will. Sleep now." I kissed her forehead gently.

Once she was asleep I laid there and studied her silently, keeping my promise to stay a while. Tonight hadn't gone as planned. She'd flummoxed my vision. Initially I'd planned to simply slip in and watch her sleep. I hadn't known about her ability to sense me. That was a wild card. I'd gone much farther than I'd planned, and it made me re-examine the future, looking for flaws. There were gaps aplenty, but no hint of anything bad close enough for me to need to do anything about it. I hoped that, whatever change I sensed around the figurative corner, it was closer rather than farther; because things were accelerating.

After she'd slipped into deep sleep, I slipped out of her room and checked the rest of the house. Pausing outside Bella's room, I looked in at the girl whose fate seemed to be becoming entwined with Edward's. I couldn't see her future yet unless it was connected with Kat's, but I would, and soon.

Dropping my snooping persona I ghosted downstairs and slipped outside. Once there, I was a blur. I found Jasper and wordlessly gestured for him to stand off. I was covered in human scent, anyone, and by that I meant everyone, would know where I'd been. We ran to the river where I'd stashed some clothes and garbage bags. Off came my clothes, and into a bag they went. After ten minutes in the river I climbed out and gestured Jasper to me. He walked around me, sniffing silently, and then nodded.

"All I smell is clean Alice. Speaking of which," he muttered as he wrapped arms around my naked body. "Let me help you get dirty again."

I laughed and checked the future. The emotions of the night really had me pumped. So I was more than agreeable. We had 40 minutes before Emmett and Rose would stumble across us, so we'd better get busy. Wrapping my arms around his neck I kissed him. "You have 35 minutes. After that we're busted by Emmett." He winced.

"Fat lot he can say with him and Rose still desecrating every flat surface in the house, the hypocrite."

Sliding my right thigh up his leg, hooking my leg around him, and grinding my hips against him, I answered, "You know that won't matter. 35 minutes. Take it or leave it."

He spun me around and pressed me against a tree. "Deal!"

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

_AN1: I seem to recall someone telling me to "find a way to post". Well, I found a way, though I gotta say that this will be the last until at least next Thursday. This chapter has a big old slug of SM right in the middle of it. Bella's POV of the accident. There were times in the Saga when I wanted to whack SM upside the head for doing some of the stuff that she did, and there are others, like the Meadow scene, where you just can't out do her, so you just have to go with the flow. The accident scene would be one of those times. Enjoy, and let me know what you think._

Bella's POV

I could already tell that this was not going to be a good day. How do I know this? Let me count the ways. For one thing, the temperature dropped over night and I woke up to a world covered in ice, which is the only thing worse than a world covered in snow. It takes my usual lack of coordination and makes it hazardous to my health.

For another thing, there was Kat. She was such a slow starter this morning that I thought I was going to have to use dynamite to get her out of bed. Once she got going she was okay, but that lack of energy this morning worried me. The one bright spot was that Charlie had delayed going to work so that he could take Kat to school for me. That trimmed some time off of my morning routine. When I asked him about the booster seat he smirked and said that, as Chief of Police he was entitled to a few privileges, like ferrying his daughter to school without a booster seat. Okay, I admit it. Some part of me turns to mush every time Charlie blithely refers to Kat as his 'daughter'.

Breakfast was cold cereal and fruit for me and Charlie, cinnamon toast for Kat, and orange juice all around. I had to practically sit on Charlie to stop him from making bacon and eggs, again. I made up my mind, at some point, that he was going eat healthy for every meal, even if I had to post his picture with a "Do not sell to this man" order at every doughnut outlet in the county.

Anyway, I fell getting out to my truck in the driveway, and getting out of my truck once I got to school was a challenge. The high point of my morning has arrived as I realized why my truck had handled the icy roads so well. Charlie apparently got up at some ungodly hour and put tire chains on my truck. So now I'm standing here, totally distracted from my surroundings; a breath away from crying over my truck tires. Ever since I can remember it's been like a natural law, Bella takes care of people; people don't take care of Bella. I wasn't used to this, but I loved it just the same.

So when this odd squealing hissing noise hit my ears it took a second to register with me and make me look up.

Alice's POV

I was standing there, trying not to look at Bella when the vision hit. I'd been a little guilty about this morning, because I already knew what a hard time Bella had getting Kat out of bed. Humans needed sleep, and children needed sleep most of all. I'd have to work on that with her. Perhaps, if I were a frequent visitor, the novelty would wear off and she'd sleep more readily. Anyway, I was having hard time not thinking when the vision hit me like a tidal wave with only a few seconds warning. I only had time for one terrified mental scream before I froze.

Edward's POV

Alice's control was wavering this morning. While I stood staring at Bella Swan, and debating the wisdom of walking over to speak to her, my inner eye was focused on Alice, waiting to pounce on the slightest lapse. I was walking a fine line as I tried to watch her, and yet not 'watch' as my brother apparently took her against a tree last night. Singing the 'Star Spangled Banner' in Hindi wasn't enough? I have to put up with 'Alice does Jasper' too? And I thought Emmett was evil with his mental porn show.

Just at the moment though I was distracted by Bella's face. She was standing at the left rear fender of her truck, staring down at her rear tire with a look of remarkable tenderness. What was it about a worn tire that provoked such emotion? Again I cursed my inability to read her mind. I was so intent that Alice's internal scream caught me off guard.

"_NO!"_

She wasn't blocking anymore, and I saw it all in a split second. I looked up at Bella Swan and only had time for one thought. _"NOT HER!"_

Bella's POV

I saw several things simultaneously. Nothing was moving in slow motion, the way it does in the movies. Instead, the adrenaline rush seemed to make my brain work much faster, and I was able to absorb in clear detail several things at once.

Edward Cullen was standing four cars down from me, staring at me in horror. His face stood out from a sea of faces, all frozen in the same mask of shock. But of more immediate importance was the dark blue van that was skidding, tires locked and squealing against the brakes, spinning wildly across the ice of the parking lot. It was going to hit the back corner of my truck, and I was standing between them. I didn't even have time to close my eyes.

Just before I heard the shattering crunch of the van folding around the truck bed, something hit me, hard, but not from the direction I was expecting.

My head cracked against the icy blacktop, and I felt something solid and cold pinning me to the ground. I was lying on the pavement behind the tan car I'd parked next to. But I didn't have a chance to notice anything else, because the van was still coming. It had curled gratingly around the end of the truck and, still spinning and sliding, was about to collide with me again.

A low oath made me aware that someone was with me, and the voice was impossible not to recognize. Two long, white hands shot out protectively in front of me, and the van shuddered to a stop a foot from my face, the large hands fitting providentially into a deep dent in the side of the van's body.

Then his hands moved so fast they blurred. One was suddenly gripping under the body of the van, and something was dragging me, swinging my legs around like a ragdoll's, till they hit the tire of the tan car. A groaning metallic thud hurt my ears, and the van settled, glass popping, onto the asphalt — exactly where, a second ago, my legs had been.

Rosalie's POV

What the hell is he doing? My goddamn idiot brother just vanished into the middle of a car accident; and for what? So he could save some mayfly 'here today/gone tomorrow' human girl?

"I'm going to kill him," I muttered venomously. "He's ruined everything."

"Shut up, Rose," Alice snarled.

I looked at Alice, startled. Usually she wasn't so assertive unless clothing was involved.

"Alice, do you realize what he's done? How much danger he's placed us in? Does he even know _what_ he's doing?"

Alice smirked at me. "The answers to that would be yes, yes, and no. Yes, I know what he's done. Yes, I know how much danger he's placed us in, which is none to speak of. And no, I don't think he knows what he's doing, and I don't think he will for a while, but I have an inkling and I think he's doing exactly what he was meant to do."

I glared down at her, but she didn't appear to be the least bit intimidated. "There will be a family meeting over this, where we'll decide what to do. Until then, he's in deep shit with me."

Alice's POV

I love my sister, and as such I can say that she's a pompous overbearing pinhead, who thinks that the world revolves around her pretty face. That being said I still love her, because she's also fiercely loyal and would die to protect any of us, even if she was pissed at us at the time. Usually I just let her go her egocentric way and smirk behind her back when required. But this time I'm going to have to keep her in her place, for her own good. For our _greater_ good.

We're standing back as the panic and melee ensue around the accident. No one paid attention to the fact that we weren't moving. I credit that to our ability to be unobtrusive, and the fact that Edward had moved so fast that no human had any idea that our brother was in there with Bella. The teachers have arrived, and the EMTs aren't far behind. Between them they managed to shift the van far enough to get to the 'victims'. We're downwind, so we'd know if any blood had been spilled, and we'd be elsewhere right now.

Edward is standing now, looking down at Bella, after looking over at us. I could see him surreptitiously using the back of his foot to rearrange the damage to one of the vehicles, hiding the outline of his shoulders in the metal.

"I'll get it, Eddie," I heard Emmett mutter.

Rosalie was still glaring at the scene, and I saw Edward wince. Rose could wield her tongue like a broken bottle in a bar fight when she was of a mind to, and Edward was probably getting the sharp edge of it right now.

I smiled, and, while shielding myself once again, I thought, _"Relax Edward, I've got your back on this one."_

He looked up at me quizzically, then over at Jasper, and nodded gratefully before turning to the sounds of another approaching siren. Apparently Charlie had finally been alerted. His car slammed to a stop and he jumped out.

"Bella!"

"I'm fine, Dad," she called from her position on the gurney, while managing to look embarrassed. "There's nothing wrong with me."

She nearly gets killed and has the wherewithal to look embarrassed about it. Five will get you ten that the neck brace she's wearing is Edward's doing.

Charlie kept up a barrage of questions all the way to the ambulance and then stood with his fists clenched as it drove away with Bella in the rear and Edward riding shotgun, seemingly unable to move for a long moment. Then he dashed to his cruiser and threw himself into the driver's seat, before he pulled out my hearing picked up his conversation with the dispatcher.

"May, you got your ears on?"

"I'm here chief."

"Have an officer swing by the elementary school and pick up my youngest daughter, on my authority. Right now I'll feel better if I have all my kids where I can see'em."

"Chief, they might not release your daughter to someone who isn't you or Isabella."

He made a frustrated noise. "Fine, I'll call them." He was already hitting the speed dial on his cell phone when he hit the sirens and squealed out of the parking lot.

A sudden vision of the immediate future made me smile. I turned to the others and said, "I'm going to the hospital."

Rose blinked. "Why?"

"I want to see what happens."

"What happens to who?" she shot back. "The girl wasn't hurt, and Edward can't be hurt. Unless…"she trailed off.

"No, sorry to disappoint you Rose, but no one is going to die of undetected injuries, as if there could be such a thing around Carlisle."

She shrugged. "Then I'm staying here. Call if anything develops."

Emmett nodded. "I'll stay too. I'm gonna go make a nuisance of myself around the 'accident' scene and clean up the evidence."

"I think I'll join you," Jasper said, as he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. "Have fun," he whispered. He'd heard Charlie too.

Rose nodded and turned to huff her way into the building. Yeah, it'd take her a while, but I'd already 'seen' her downfall, and, to quote 'Bill and Ted', it was going to be excellent.

I walked over to the Volvo, fished out my keys, and was on my way to see our future take flight.

Edward's POV

I was confused. I was at a loss to explain my actions. And Alice notwithstanding, I was going to have to explain myself to my family. Oh, I had an excuse _now._ I'd had to prevent Bella Swan's blood from being spilled, or I'd have become a rabid animal right there in the parking lot. However, at the time, her blood had nothing to do with it. I wasn't even thinking of it. I was running completely on impulse, and I was at a loss to explain it.

The girl and I had this battle of wills going before they had ever moved the car. She wanted the truth, and I couldn't tell her the truth. In the end I had to do something that made me feel like a cad. I had to lie and promise to tell her the truth when I had no such intention.

Now I was faced with the unpleasant task of putting her off, and this was in addition to the inner turmoil engendered by listening to Tyler Crowley plan his campaign to woo Bella Swan. I'd been tempted to help him bleed some more, but Carlisle would have objected. Now Bella and I were standing here, scowling at each other. I'd just told her that I hoped that she enjoyed disappointment and she was close to tears with her anger and hurt. I felt ten times worse because, despite my cruelty and rejection she'd sworn, several times, her intention to keep lying for me - to protect my secret. It made my betrayal of her honesty burn my heart like nothing since the fire of my change.

I was about to turn and walk away when something tugged on my pants and a childish falsetto piped up. "Are you Eddie Colon?"

I froze, and I heard Bella gasping behind me. I glanced at her for a moment and saw that it wasn't surprise that had her trying to control her breathing, or at least it wasn't only surprise. Her hand was clamped over her mouth, and with tears caused by anger still glistening in her eyes, she was desperately trying to contain her laughter. Her eyes were dancing with it now. I looked down to discover that Bella came in a compact model too.

"Excuse me?" I said, trying to cover my shock that a child would dare to approach one of us. In my experience most children, more so than even adult humans, shied away from us.

"I asked if you were Eddie Colon," the little girl piped up. She gestured at the uniformed deputy standing watch next to the waiting room door. "Of'cer Tom said that Eddie Colon saved my Sissy, and I want to know if you're him."

I looked down into that earnest little face that bore its own recent tear stains and fought to keep from smiling. "Yes, I suppose that I am."

"Good!" she answered emphatically, as she wrapped my right leg was firmly in a little girl hug. "Thanks for saving my, Sissy. I been 'fraid ever since mommy got hurt."

I looked at Bella for help, and then realized that I'd just burned my bridges there as she stared back smirking. I was on my own, and while I could fake being a scoundrel well enough for the elder Swan girl, this child was another matter. There's a special hell reserved for those who are intentionally cruel to children in thought, word, or deed. So I looked back down at that little brown mop of hair as her cheek rested on my thigh and smiled.

"I'm glad I could help," I said. "You shouldn't be afraid, little one. There's no reason to be afraid." I was possessed by the strangest urge to stroke that hair. The sisters Swan were bringing out all sorts of strange behavior in me.

Bella finally came to my rescue by holding out her hand. "Come on Kat, Mr. Colon was just leaving and I need to get home and take some aspirin."

I glanced up at her intentional mispronunciation of my name, as she stared at me defiantly and said softly, "Considering how you were acting before she spoke up, I'd say she was close anatomically."

I winced as Kat took her hand. "Sissy? What's at…atan….amatonicy mean?"

Bella smiled at her sister. "It means that you got his name almost right, Sweetie."

I winced again. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the misnomer 'Colon' was going to become a recurring theme in my future.

I turned to leave again when I heard her call my name and looked back.

"Thank you," she said. "For me, for Kat, for my family. Just…thanks."

I didn't smile. "You're welcome."

As I walked out of the ER main doors Alice stepped from behind a parked ambulance.

"What are you doing here?" I growled.

"Just taking in the view," she said with a giggle. "Mr. Colon."

I sighed. "I'll give you $1000 not to tell Emmett."

Alice paused on the way to the Volvo, which I could see parked across the lot. Her chin was propped up on one finger as she seemed to give my proposal serious consideration.

"Ummm….let me think…no," she answered.

"$10,000?"

She grinned. "Edward, you're asking me to forego a lot of entertainment here."

"So, what do you want?"

"$10,000, and you keep an open mind for the next twenty-four hours. After that, you're on your own."

"What's going to happen in the next twenty-four hours?"

"I don't know, but something will."

I tried to put a headlock on her and she pushed me off. "You're annoying, do you know that?"

"As a matter of fact I do," she replied airily. "It's one of the things that you love about me."

Walking to the driver's side I unlocked the door. "Not that much I don't." Then I grinned. "But I do love you, Shorty, just enough. Twenty-four hours."

"And the cash."

"And the cash," I sighed as I got in and started the car. "Mercenary little elf."

She chuckled. "Let's go. If you hurry we can get back in time for lunch. Yum!"

I shuddered and pulled out of the parking lot. I hate high school.

Bella's POV

After Edward vanished through the double doors into the waiting room, I looked down at my sister and smiled. For the first time ever I was asking her opinion of someone, straight up.

"What'd you think of him, Kat?"

She shrugged. "He's pretty. There's so many pretty people around here."

"Mean or nice?" I asked.

"Oh," she replied brightly. "Nice, really nice."

I nodded. "That's what I thought," I muttered to myself.

Charlie emerged from form signing hell and announced that I was cleared to leave.

"Please tell me that you didn't call Renee about this?" I said abruptly.

He shook his head. "Oh, no, your mom has enough on her plate right now. Phil and I agreed before you ever moved here, that until she's back on her feet, that there's nothing that she needs to know about that doesn't involve one of you actually bleeding, and maybe not even then unless it's serious."

I relaxed and nodded. "Good," I replied.

Kat kept Charlie occupied on the ride home in his cruiser, while I considered the available information.

Edward Cullen had saved my life under incredible circumstances, and then went out of his way to behave like an egregious jackass to run me off. Why? Answer, he had a secret to protect. Presumably one that involved his family. He might have pulled it off too if Kat hadn't butted in and given him her unconditional blessing. Now though it was like he had 'USDA Approved' stamped on his butt. The image made me blush.

Bad Bella! Don't go there! Not for a guy who's clearly out of your reach and who can make you forget what day it is when he smiles.

No, I just wanted answers, and Edward Cullen was a good guy who was gun shy; who hid it behind the pretense of being a bad guy when anyone got too close. Okay, if that's the game, patience I've got. I'll make the Sphinx look like an ADHD kid – until he cracks. Move over Nancy Drew. One way or another, I'd get to the truth.

I smiled. I'd been right last night, just before I fell asleep. This place felt 'right'.

TBC

_AN2: See the little feedback button? It's calling to you._


	13. Chapter 13

_AN1: Okay, this one is the most heavily salted chapter so far. There are bits of Twilight in it, along with a hefty chunk of Midnight Sun, which I relocated to differing circumstances. It illustrates my point. Some things will still happen the same way no matter what else changes. ;-) All nods to SM for the borrowed material. Enjoy! _

Edward's POV

School had been uncomfortable for the rest of the day. Schoolmates who'd never even considered talking to me had suddenly plucked up their courage and approached me for news. Most were just nosy, like the teachers. The exception was Angela Weber. She was a remarkably sweet girl. Literally a flower in the muck, as our classmates went. She stammered a bit as she politely asked after Bella, as she mentally promised herself to phone the Swans as soon as she got home from school.

I'd briefly considered widely circulating the idea that the blow to Bella's head had addled her sufficiently that her word on anything that had happened today wasn't to be taken seriously, but I didn't. For one thing, I didn't have it in me to slander someone as sweetly courteous as she'd been with me, even when I was trying to hurt her feelings. Even when she was entitled to do so, she never let her anger drive her to strike back at me. To quote Emmett, I felt like a schmuck already. No need to add to it. There was also the fact that I was now morally certain that she was telling the truth. She would keep my secret, simply because she'd promised to. There was no need to cover myself when she was doing so for me so ably. For me to engage in subterfuge now would be insulting to Bella.

However, my discomfort with my classmates was nothing to that I felt with my family. Alice and I managed to miss lunch. I wish I could have missed biology and the empty seat next to me. For some reason the accident kept replaying in my head and the end result was that the chair next to me was empty forever. The thought hurt, so I rejected it in favor of reality, even though my reality now had me getting the lowdown from Emmett in Spanish.

Emmett himself was both confused and intrigued. He didn't understand why I'd done what I'd done, but he loved it when the status quo got shaken up. He did however know one thing for certain.

"_I hope you have a good explanation for what happened today. Rose is on the warpath."_

What else could I expect from my lovely and self-absorbed sister? Of course I had a good explanation, now. But if you'd asked me there and then, or for some time afterward, I'd have had nothing to say. I couldn't explain it myself

"_Jasper's the one I can't figure out. I'd have thought he'd be all over this, but he seems to be taking his cues from Alice, and she isn't on Rose's side. Which makes Rosie doubly pissed."_

I knew one thing with certainty; whatever decision emerged from the family discussion later today, I would not allow harm to befall Isabella Swan. I had risked our secret to preserve her life. I would not allow one of my siblings to end her life to correct that. I considered what that might mean, and found myself able to accept it. If that meant fighting my family, then I would fight. I was hoping that it wouldn't come to that, and from Emmett's report, the signs were looking very good.

Emmett and I walked silently to the car when the bell rang. He was worrying about me, and worrying about Rosalie. He knew whose side he would have to choose in a quarrel, and it bothered him.

The others were waiting for us in the car, also silent. We were a very quiet group.

Only I could hear the shouting.

"_Idiot! Lunatic! Moron! Jackass! Selfish, irresponsible fool!" _ Rosalie kept up a constant stream of insults at the top of her mental lungs.

The ride home was painful, courtesy of Rose, but otherwise uninformative and silent. Alice was on mental lockdown. In the forefront of her mind, she was reciting The Lord's Prayer – in Russian – backward. And Jasper was elbow deep in memories of last night with Alice. All any of my siblings had to do was trot out the sexual intimacy and I would, again to quote Emmett, pull in my antennae and yearn to be in the next county.

We rode home in silence and I parked in the garage. I knew that Carlisle would already be home, and that eased my mind. He would keep the situation from getting out of hand.

He and Esme were already seated together at our largely unused dining room table when we filed in. We all took our seats, with me sitting on the side of Carlisle opposite from Esme. She was broadcasting motherly concern, and a desire for me to stay with the family no matter what. A large part of my heart resonated with that, but I couldn't afford to split my attention to take time to comfort her. I had to focus.

I took a deep breath. I had started this—I should speak first.

"I'm sorry," I said, looking them each in the face, one by one. "I didn't mean to put any of you at risk. It was thoughtless, and I take full responsibility for my hasty action."

"What I want to know is what you're going to do about it?" Rose growled.

I regarded her steadily. "I'm prepared to leave, if necessary."

Esme stirred uncomfortably and I could hear her unspoken plea. She wanted me to stay.

"Not good enough, Edward," Rose replied icily. "That still leaves the human with way to much information and a head full of questions. Now I'm asking you again, what are you going to do about it?"

My eyes narrowed. It was time to get this out in the open.

"What would you have me do, Rose? Kill her in her sleep?"

She shrugged. "That's the most obvious and easiest solution. She has a head injury, so it won't be at all shocking if she goes to bed tonight and doesn't wake up." She sniffed. "If you don't have the stomach to handle it, I do."

"Yes, Rosalie, we all know how proficient an assassin you are," I snarled.

She appealed to Carlisle. "It's just common sense. The Volturi expect us to clean up after ourselves; our family more than most, because we stand out more than the others do."

Carlisle looked pained and shook his head. "No, Rosalie, it's not common sense. Common sense for our race would have us running the woods and preying on humans. Common sense wouldn't have us sitting here, in a comfortable home, having this debate. What you're demanding isn't common sense. What you're demanding, is callous. It is barbaric." He sighed. "I'm all for protecting our family, but not if it means sacrificing that which makes us who and what we are. I would have us be worth protecting. Killing an innocent child based on the possibility that she might reveal our secret makes us, in the end, no different from our red-eyed brothers and sisters who would kill her for food. And this _isn't_ Rochester, or anything close to it."

Rosalie sat back and pouted a moment before appealing to the one family member, aside from Emmett, whom she thought she could rely on to support her.

"Jasper, what do you think?"

Jasper regarded her stoically, from where he sat next to Alice. "I think that we should wait and watch. Trust me Rose, if I thought that there was a threat that would touch Alice, even slightly, Edward would have to get physical to stop me."

I noticed Esme cringing at the thought of her children embroiled in a serious quarrel. It wouldn't come to that, or at least I hoped not.

"Jasper's right," Alice chimed in. "I told him back at school that I didn't see Bella telling anyone. She promised Edward that she wouldn't. She'll keep her word."

Rose looked like she tasted something sour at the thought of trusting a human.

"I could still leave, Rose, if I can count on your word that you won't harm the girl," I said.

Emmett chose that moment to stick his oar into the waters of contention. "Nope, you can't go anywhere Eddie. Your presence may be all that's holding her back, and if the dam does bust, you're our early warning system."

"Alice can handle that," I argued. "My gift sees only what is, hers sees what might be."

I saw Alice open her mouth to argue, but Rose cut her off.

"Oh no, brother dear. You broke it, you bought it. Emmett's right. This is your mess to monitor and clean up. You're going nowhere until such time as your pet human settles down and accepts the status quo."

She said that last with a sneer, as if Bella Swan were something to be scraped off of her shoe, which finally managed to provoke me into a wordless growl. Carlisle placed a calming hand on my shoulder.

"So it's agreed, that we wait and watch. No one will harm the Swan girl. Before I left work I perused the medical history of the Swan family that was available at the hospital. There's a younger sister, Katrina Alexis. It would be criminal to take her older sister from her simply because Edward saved her life."

Alice spoke up now. "It's worse than that."

Now Esme was intrigued. "How's that, Alice?"

"The mother remarried," I broke in, looking at Alice curiously, wondering how much she knew and how she came by the information. There was something flickering around the edges of her block. "On the honeymoon, there was a boating accident. Their mother Renee is crippled as a result and will be bedridden for a long time to come. She can't care for her daughters, and her new husband has his hands full with taking care of her, so…."

"…they came to live with their father," Esme finished, somberly. "Those poor dears." She cast a glare at Rosalie. "No, _no one_ will harm them."

I'm sure that no one missed the fact that Esme said 'them' instead of 'her'. In her mind, Bella was now tied to Katrina. They were a package deal; to hurt one was to hurt the other. _"Oh Bella, if you only knew that you now have an over-protective mama bear vampire on your team,"_ I thought with a barely suppressed grin.

Carlisle stood, sensing that it was time to wind up the meeting before Esme could really get fired up, and held out his hand to her.

"I think that we're done here." He glanced at me. "Edward, I'll expect you to update us once a week or so, on Bella Swan's behavior, even if nothing untoward occurs." He nodded to each of us in turn, releasing us to go about our business. Before I could corner Alice and talk to her though, she snagged Jasper's hand and vanished in a blur of displaced air.

Damn it, this was getting ridiculous! What was she hiding?

Alice's POV

I had to get Jasper and I the hell away from Edward for a while. That sense of expectancy was increasing by the moment. Whatever vehicle of probability was operating here was about to flip the switch, I could feel it. I was having a hard enough time hiding what I already knew. Any more foreknowledge and my head might explode all over Edward.

I'd been practically giddy with elation when Rose couldn't keep her mouth shut about Edward leaving. I sensed that some part of him was leaning that way still, but that the larger part of him was stuck here, like a fly in amber – only not in a bad way. However, that didn't mean that he couldn't be trusted to work himself around to a state of mind that would let him leave. I couldn't let that happen. The problem was that he was already looking hard in my direction, and any attempt to engage him would cause me to think about things that I was trying to avoid in his presence; so when Rose stepped up and did my job for me by demanding that he stay, and gaining Carlisle's tacit approval for that plan, I was ready to dance on the tabletop.

Now Jasper and I were running for the horizon, with me in the lead. We weren't going anywhere in particular, just putting distance between me and my snoopy brother, and Forks too, until the Swan household was closer to bedtime. As we were crossing a rocky clearing a little bit to the west of Forks probability flipped on its side. As visions go, this one was what I call a 'whammy'. It's one thing to get one of those when you're sitting down, or just walking even. It's quite another to get one when you're running flat out. So, of course I did something that vampires don't generally do. I stumbled and fell – While running at high speed – over rock and loose stones.

Oh well, I wasn't _that_ fond of this particular outfit anyway.

Jasper, of course, flipped out. By the time I'd half-rolled half-skidded to a stop amid the bracken and scrub on the edge of the clearing he was at my side.

"Ali! Are you all right?"

I was too engrossed by what I was seeing to answer. One vision followed the next. Apparently, Bella Swan's future was finally starting to become visible to me in greater detail, painfully explicit detail. The hints at a divided future were finally clear. The vision that had caused me to ruin my clothes had been a bad one. In one branch of that divided future Edward had slipped up, like most of our family had at one time or another, only this wasn't your ordinary tragedy. He would kill Bella Swan. However, the scenes from the other branching fate that followed gave lie to that first vision, so I could only assume that there was a choice yet to be made. Edward's choice. Well, I would just have to help him out with that. I was horrified. He would kill Kat's sister over my smoldering remains. However, when the last peek into the future played to the end, I sat up abruptly reexamining what I'd just seen. Oh my. So, that answered that question. I smiled. Oh Edward, this will cost you $100,000. At least. More if you try to drag this out big brother.

Up to this point, I'd ignored the various indignities that the stones had committed on me during my wipeout. But now I hissed as Jasper licked at a small abrasion on my forehead, healing it at once. That stings, damn it! I looked up at him as he stared at me in mild amusement.

"You're really something, you know that Darlin'? It's a good thing that our kind doesn't get ulcers, because what happened there a few minutes ago would've been worth a big one."

I took stock of myself. I was dirty, sticky, and my clothes were shredded. This would never do.

"I'm sorry, Jazz," I said, as I held out my hand so he that could help me up. I didn't need his help, but it made my fine Southern Gentleman feel better. "That one caught me by surprise."

"Was it bad?"

I sighed. "Yes and no. I saw two possible futures. One in which Edward loses control and kills Bella Swan, and another where we become friends and she eventually becomes one of us."

"By one of us you mean…"

"Yes, a vampire."

Jasper looked thoughtful. "He won't want to kill her, and aside from Rose, he's the one that's the most morose about our way of life, about what we are. He won't want that for anyone. He'll want to stay away from her."

I grinned. "Fat chance. I'm not the only Cullen who'll be snooping around Casa de Swan. You didn't see what I saw, Jazz. The look in his eyes when he watched her sleep. I recognize that look." I leaned in and kissed him. "I see it in _your_ eyes every time you look at me." I started trying to straighten myself up. "Everything hinges on his self-control. He may be just strong enough not to kill her—but it will be close. It will take an amazing amount of control." I gave up on my hair in disgust. "More even than Carlisle has. He may be just strong enough… The only thing he's not strong enough to do is stay away from her. That's a lost cause."

Jasper blinked in surprise. "His mate? She'll be his mate?"

I shrugged. "I can't see that yet, or anything close to that. All I know is that he's halfway to being in love with her now. I could see that coming even before my vision, and that she'll be part of our family someday."

"What about her sister?"

I sighed. The Isabella Swan that I'd seen as a vampire in my vision wasn't that much older than she was now; a few years perhaps, but no more than that. Katrina would likely still be in her single digits when that future came to pass. The thought left a bitter taste in my mouth. It was a complicated future that we faced, and which Kat would face because of us. That fact alone would make Edward resist it all the harder. But it was steady and unvarying in my mind's eye. So be it. We would be her family, until Bella could be again.

"I don't know," I replied. "I can't see that far into her future yet. I can only say that she's part of our future, and her sister is looking more and more like Edward's future."

Jasper looked thoughtful, and then nodded firmly. One of the many things that I love about my husband is his absolute faith in me. As such I don't abuse it.

"Alright," he said. "What's next?"

I looked down at myself. I was completely trashed. I couldn't show up to visit Katrina looking like I went two falls out of three with Emmett's idea of a blue plate special – and lost. I leafed through Edward's future, and saw him and Emmett stalking elk. Good. The nearest elk herd wasn't close at all at this time of year.

"A hot shower, soap, and fresh clothes, in that order. Emmett and Edward are going to be hunting elk by the time we get back, so they'll be gone a good hour or more."

He leaned in and kissed me. "I can deal with that. Last one home scrubs the other one's back," he whispered before he took off.

"Cheater!" I squealed, as I took off after him.

Silly boy, win or lose, I'd wash his back, his front, or any other body part of his choice – or my choice.

Edward's POV

Knowing what my plans this evening were, I'd glutted myself on elk and, in a nice surprise; I picked off a mountain lion that'd had similar plans for the evening. Stupid of me to forget that, where there are prey animals, there will often be something to prey on them. If nothing else, it proved that my mind was wandering. I was having a 'senior moment', as Emmett had referred to it. I snorted. Being the eldest child could be a pain.

I was approaching the Swan home hesitantly. I wasn't new to snooping around a human to learn if they harbored any suspicions of us. But for some reason this…stalking …of

Bella Swan made me ill at ease. I put it down to the fact that she wasn't just suspicious, but rather _knew, _beyond any possible doubt, that something was off with me and by extension with my family. She just didn't know what…yet. Yes, that was it why I felt this odd trepidation.

I was perhaps a mile and a half out when I cut an old scent trail and slowed to a halt. One of us had been here. Not just any vampire either, but a member of my own family. I circled the area centering on the Swan property, spiraling inward, and found several scent trails of varying ages. Two of my siblings had some explaining to do. I was already detecting their thoughts as I quickened my pace. Approaching the back of the property, I picked up Alice's thoughts, focused, not on Bella, but on her sister. So _this_ was her secret? I fought a mocking smile. This wasn't funny. If what I'd done was both stupid and reckless, then surely what Alice was up to here was flat out insane. I sighed. This would get messy and painful for everybody before the end, but at least Rose would have a reason to focus her ire on someone else for a while.

Jasper was waiting patiently well back from the tree line. I knew that he both heard and felt me coming, even though he didn't move to meet me. He was sitting fifteen feet up an oak tree, relaxing on a branch, with his back to the trunk, with one leg dangling carelessly. As I slowed to a stop he showed no change in position or demeanor. It was his way of saying that the disapproval that I was broadcasting at him wasn't making an impression. He was also listening to "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in his head. For an ex-Confederate officer to be using _that_ piece of music to screen his thoughts, they must be truly explosive. I sighed.

"What good is being the nominal 'eldest' if no one sees you as an authority figure?" I said, as I stopped to lean against a tree about ten feet away from him.

He chuckled softly, but without malice. "There's your mistake, Edward. No one sees you as an authority figure." I could almost hear his grin. "And if we're going on age, then I should outrank you."

I said nothing, but I let my emotions do the talking.

"You're not angry?" he ventured.

I looked up at him. "I'm troubled, Jasper. Troubled and puzzled, but not angry…yet." I paused and studied him, trying to pry my way around his stubborn defense of his thoughts. "Why, do I have a reason to be angry?"

He shrugged, not giving up an inch. Alice had to know I was here by now. She would have seen it. And she was coming out. I was just starting to debate the advisability of going in after her when the Swan's back door opened silently and Alice emerged to silently and swiftly cross the yard. She'd waited until the last minute. Predictable.

"Edward," she said, casually. "Shall we take this elsewhere?"

That didn't bode well.

Jasper took a running leap off the tree and led off. Together we ran until we reached a clearing next to the river, well above where it ran by the house.

"Turn your back," she said.

"What?" I replied, startled.

"Turn your back, Edward," Jasper interjected. "She's covered in human scent. She needs to wash it off and change clothes before we go back to the house."

Even though I knew that they were stalling; I could smell it on her, and feel the venom burning in my throat, so I turned my back anyway, albeit grumpily. To her credit, Alice worked at vampire speed, keeping things to a few minutes.

"Okay," Alice said cheerily. "I'm decent."

"That's a matter of debate at the moment," I said, turning around to regard my siblings. "What are you playing at, Alice? Isn't it bad enough that Rose wants to kill the older Swan girl? Do you have to give her an excuse to kill the younger child too?"

Alice snorted. "Rose would _never_ harm a child, no matter what the provocation." Now she was openly smirking. "Least of all _that_ one."

Now I was edging towards angry. "What have you seen?"

She smiled at me gently, kindly, almost regretfully, and her barriers fell. And I saw. Everything.

"NO!" I shouted.

It was like my knees had been kicked from under me. I folded to the ground, holding myself up with my arms. I would not do that!

"It's solidifying," Alice whispered. "Every minute you're more decided. There're really only two ways left for her. It's one or the other, Edward."

"I'll leave," I responded, my head whirling with images of warring hope and damnation.

"I don't see you going anywhere, Edward," Alice told me. "I don't know if you can leave anymore."

"_Think about it,"_ she added silently. "_Think about leaving."_

I saw what she meant. Yes, the idea of never seeing the girl again was…painful.

But it was also necessary. I couldn't sanction either future I'd apparently condemned her to.

"_I'm not entirely sure of __Rose__, Edward," _Alice went on. _"If you leave, if __she__ thinks __that Bella's__ a danger to us…"_

"You and your scheming husband are more than capable of handling Rose," I ground out.

"Besides, you heard Esme. She'd never permit it, which means that Carlisle would never permit it." I looked up at her, glaring. "I can see why you waited until we were out here, away from the rest of the family to tell me. What I don't understand is why me?" I was not Bella's protector. I could not be that. Wasn't Alice's divided future enough proof of that?

"_I love her, too. Or I will. It's not the same, but I want her around for that. __I already love her sister like she was my own.__"_

"Love her, too?" I whispered, incredulous.

I looked up and saw Jasper regarding me with a pitying expression. He knew. She'd told him.

She sighed. _"You are so blind, Edward. Can't you see where you're headed? Can't you see where you already are? It's more inevitable than the sun rising in the east. See what I see…"_

I shook my head, horrified. "No." I tried to shut out the visions she revealed to me. "I don't have to follow that course. I'll leave. I will change the future."

"You can try," she said, her voice skeptical.

I leapt to my feet abruptly, snarling at her certainty in her visions.

"Hey now!" Jasper interjected, as he stepped between us. "Let's not shoot the messenger."

I glared at them both for a long minute then said, "Tell the family nothing of this. They don't need to know." With that I spun away and ran. I ran to escape Alice's confidence and Jasper's confidence in that confidence.

I cleared the river in one bound, and raced into the forest. The rain was back again, falling so heavily that I was drenched in a few moments. I liked the thick sheet of water—it made a wall between me and the rest of the world. It closed me in, let me be alone.

I ran due east, over and through the mountains without breaking my straight course, until I could see the lights of Seattle on the other side of the sound. I stopped before I touched the borders of human civilization.

Shut in by the rain, all alone, I finally made myself look at what I had done—at the way I had mutilated the future. Compared to Alice's innocuous visions of Katrina Swan, the projected fate of her sister was my worst nightmare.

First, the vision of Alice and the girl with their arms around each other—the trust and friendship was so obvious it shouted from the image. Bella's wide chocolate eyes were not bewildered in this vision, but still full of secrets—in this moment, they seemed to be happy secrets. She did not flinch away from Alice's cold arm.

What did it mean? How much did she know? In that still-life moment from the future, what did she think of _me_?

Then the other image, so much the same, yet now colored by horror. Alice and Bella, their arms still wrapped around each other in trusting friendship. But now there was no difference between those arms—both were white, smooth as marble, hard as steel.

Bella's wide eyes were no longer chocolate. The irises were a shocking, vivid crimson.

The secrets in them were unfathomable—acceptance or desolation? It was impossible to tell. Her face was cold and immortal.

I shuddered. I could not suppress the questions, similar, but different: What did it mean—how had this come about? And what did she think of me now?

I could answer that last one. If I forced her into this empty half-life through my weakness and selfishness, surely she would hate me.

But there was one more horrifying image—worse than any image I'd ever held inside my head.

My own eyes, deep crimson with human blood, the eyes of the monster. Bella's broken body in my arms, ashy white, drained, lifeless. It was so concrete, so clear. And what of her sister? She didn't appear in the vision. Had I killed that sweet child as well in my savagery and bloodlust?

I couldn't stand to see this. Could not bear it. I tried to banish it from my mind, tried to see something else, anything else. Tried to see again the expression on her living face that had obstructed my view for the last chapter of my existence. All to no avail.

Alice's bleak vision filled my head, and I writhed internally with the agony it caused. Meanwhile, the monster in me was overflowing with glee, jubilant at the likelihood of his success. It sickened me.

This could not be allowed. There had to be a way to circumvent the future. I would not let Alice's visions direct me. I could choose a different path. There was always a choice.

There had to be.

TBC

_AN2: See the pretty feedback icon. It wants you to click on it. Obey the icon._


	14. Chapter 14

_AN1: Good morning! And welcome to another glorious day on Fan Fiction (dot) Net. Time for your minimum weekly dose of KK's misfiring synapses. ;-) As always, thanks to my wonderful betas, Im2xshy and jdficwriter. Without their help and encouragement, I wouldn't be writing._

_AN1.5: Ooops! I forgot this in the initial post! There's a chunk of vintage SM right in the middle of this thing. Some of Edward's internal dialog from Midnight Sun. Of course I warped it a bit. (grins) Anyway, all due credit to Miz Meyer.  
_

Esme's POV

I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. The morning after Edward saved Bella Swan's life; he had appeared for school with a look of grim finality on his face more suited to a man facing his own execution rather than a moderately dull day posing as an average American teenager. The rest of my children seemed to be in a state of watchful waiting, though even there they differed. Emmett followed Rose's lead as they obviously waited for things to go back to normal. But I got an entirely different feeling from Alice and Jasper. It was like they were waiting for something to happen. Like me, waiting for that other shoe, but unlike me, somehow unafraid of it.

I just want my children to be happy. After my Thomas had died, I thought I'd never be happy again. With my baby boy gone I had absolutely nothing left to live for, and I chose the path that inevitably, if inadvertently, had led me to Carlisle. I would never make an issue of it with my husband, but I'm sure that he knows that I still miss Tommy. If I had to give up all that I have now, for him to live again and have a future, I would do it. I don't regret my choice. I simply couldn't face a life without my baby boy in it. But if he could live again, I would surrender my current happiness for him. I would trade my life for his. It's part of a mother's love. However, that isn't the way of things, so I try to give my family everything that I would have given to him and hope that he understands.

Of all of my children, Edward has concerned me the most, in part because he was my first child of this new life, and in part because, for all his age, he still seems to be so young sometimes. He doesn't often show it now, but he has a tender heart that is easily wounded; something that his brothers and sisters forget more often than they should. It makes his gift more of a burden than it would have been for anyone else.

My son is a walking talking dichotomy. Inside he's still the sweet shy gawky boy from the turn of the last century, whom I fear was changed too young; outside he's hardened, and he's often cynical and jaded. And these last few decades, I've feared that his exterior is slowly working its way inward, towards that beautiful heart of his, where someday soon it will extinguish the soul that he doesn't believe he has, and on that day something precious will go out of our lives and the world.

He was there for me in my newborn year. He kept me from making mistakes, and offered me comfort when I failed. Most of all, he gave me focus by letting me mother him. I loved him as I would have loved my lost son, and he loved me back like his lost mother. I want what's best for him, what will make him happy, but right now I'm at a loss to say what that is. He seems both frightened and angry, and if I press him to open his heart to me he will bolt. So I suffer in silence the age-old burden of parenthood when your child is in pain. I have to wait for him to come to me.

Come to me soon, my sweet boy.

Edward's POV

High school. It was no longer the purgatory that I'd always seen it as these many decades, it was now purely hell. Torment and fire…yes, I had both.

I was doing everything correctly now. Every "i" dotted, every "t" crossed. No one could complain that I was shirking my responsibilities.

To please Esme and protect the others, I stayed in Forks. Only Alice and Jasper knew my real motivation. I returned to my old schedule. Instead of gorging myself on animal blood every other day, I now hunted no more than the rest of them. I was Carlisle Cullen's son. I would resist the call of Bella Swan's blood by my discipline alone.

Everyday, I attended high school and played human. Everyday, I listened carefully for anything new about the Cullens—there never was anything new. The girl did not speak one word of her suspicions. She just repeated the same story again and again—I'd been standing with her and then pulled her out of the way—till her eager listeners got bored and stopped looking for more details.

There was no danger. My hasty action had hurt no one.

No one but myself.

I was determined to change the future. Not the easiest task to set for oneself, but there was no other choice that I could live with.

Alice said that I would not be strong enough to stay away from the girl. I would prove her wrong.

I'd thought the first day would be the hardest. By the end of it, I'd been sure that was the case. I'd been wrong, though.

It had rankled, knowing that I would hurt the girl. I'd comforted myself with the fact that her pain would be nothing more than a pinprick—just a tiny sting of rejection— compared to mine.

Bella was human, and she knew that I was something else, something wrong, something frightening. She would probably be more relieved than wounded when I turned my face away from her and pretended that she didn't exist.

"Hello, Edward," she'd greeted me, that first day back in biology. Her voice had been pleasant, friendly, one hundred and eighty degrees from what I would have expected.

Why? What was she thinking? Had she forgotten? Decided she had imagined the whole episode? Could she possibly have forgiven me for not following through on my promise?

The questions had burned like the thirst that attacked me every time I breathed.

I wanted just one moment to look in her eyes. Just to see if I could read the answers there…

No. I could not allow myself even that. Not if I was going to change the future.

I'd moved my chin an inch in her direction without looking away from the front of the room. I'd nodded once, and then turned my face straight forward. And that's where the train started to go off the tracks.

I had steeled myself to watch through Mike Newton's eyes, knowing that they would be on Bella if she was anywhere in his line of sight, and saw, to my chagrin, that my icy rebuff seemed to have no impact at all. Bella Swan regarded my stony profile a moment longer, and then went about opening her notebook in preparation Mr. Banner's uninspiring lecture. All the while she wore a tiny self-satisfied smile that reminded me uncomfortably of the Mona Lisa. Like she knew something that I didn't. Given the fact that I was mind-blind where she was concerned, that was probably true too. I hissed under my breath in frustration. This was going to be harder than I thought.

Young master Newton didn't care for her expression either, though for different reasons than mine. He countered his own frustration with some particularly vivid mental images that made me want to backhand him – or at least break his hands, before they ever tried to find their way onto Bella's person in the manner that the worthless cretin was visualizing.

The class hour dragged by slowly. It had gone much easier once I abandoned the confines of young Mr. Newton's fantasy riddled mind in favor of less frequent peeks through the eyes of the kinder and gentler Angela Webber. It had been an act of self-preservation really. Had I been forced to endure just one more pornographic daydream involving my table-mate, I think I would have killed Mike Newton on the spot. While his desire for Bella was little different from most of the other boys in school, it truly infuriated me that he saw her in his mind as some sort of generic and completely interchangeable 'girl of the moment', a simple receptacle for his lust, instead of as the unique person that she was. If that was really how he saw women, his romantic future would be bleak to say the least. And if he continued his repulsive daydreams, I would take pleasure in making his reproductive future equally bleak.

I cut off that train of thought abruptly. Allowing the word 'romantic' appear anywhere in close proximity to Bella in my thoughts did little for my peace of mind. Add Mike Newton into the mix and I started inexplicably wanting to break things. Furniture. People. Rules.

I had already gathered my books before the bell rang, so that I could slip out the door before she could stop me. As if sensing my intent, just before the bell she said, appearing to address no one in particular, "My sister asked me to say hi." The remark was so out of left field that it froze me in my seat.

"W-what?" What was _that_? Had I just _nearly_ stammered? The quaver in my voice was so fast that any ordinary human would have missed it, but I was willing to bet that Bella hadn't.

She smiled widely. "Kat said that if I saw Eddie Co…"

I raised a hand to forestall her, because I knew exactly what was about to come out of her mouth. I knew damn good and well that, wherever they were in this building, my siblings could pick out this conversation…if they were listening for it. And given recent events, what were the odds against that? I could hear Emmett drooling in anticipation of some dirt and Alice giggling at my efforts to bend the future and Bella to my will.

"I get the point." I paused. "Tell her I said hi back?"

She smirked. "I'll do that. But you know it's not going to work, right? I just thought I'd get that out there."

"What's not going to work?" I growled as the bell rang and our classmates broke for the door.

She started shoving her books and papers into her tattered back pack. She really needed a new one. "The 'I'm going to be an enormous jackass to you so you'll think I'm bad news and leave me alone' thing. If you want me to leave you alone, at least have the guts to say so to my face, instead of pretending to be something that you aren't."

"And do you know _what_ I am?" I bit out, as I glared at her. What did she know of pretending? This was getting intolerable.

"Nope," she said brightly as she finished loading her backpack and slung it over her right shoulder, and then turned to look me directly in the eye and gift me with that enigmatic smile of hers, "but I'm working on it. I do know what you're _not_ though, and that's the sort of jerk you've been trying to make me believe you are this morning."

"And how do you know this?" I snapped.

She turned away and started walking briskly towards the door as she tossed her answer over her shoulder.

"My little sister said so."

And then she was gone.

Intolerable I tell you! I was tempted to run after her and continue to...to…

Then my anger bled away and I found myself smiling softly in spite of my earlier petulance. Yes. It was intolerable. Then I blinked as I realized what had just happened. She'd offered me a chance to tell her to her face to leave me alone; and being the way that she is, had I asked she would have honored my request. I hadn't asked. Why hadn't I just asked? I could hear Emmett choking on his laughter clear across the building. Even Jasper couldn't restrain a chuckle at my expense, though I felt that he personally had no room to talk.

With a groan, I gathered my books and headed for Spanish. This was going to be a _lot_ more difficult than I would have believed only yesterday.

Bella's POV

By a minor miracle, I escaped gym class with a minimum of bruising and humiliation. Coach Clapp was apparently on a sadism kick, because we played dodge ball that day, and I was pronounced fit enough to play. Okay, I _agreed_ that I was fit enough to play. I don't like being seen as a special case when I'm really nothing special at all. I was always out on the first exchange of fire anyway, which suited me fine. Aside from that I was having a better day than yesterday or even the last several days, that's for certain.

The 'new school' depression was lifting. According to Angela Webber, who understood my aversion to the spotlight, gossip about me seemed to be dying down, or at least the nosiness was less blatant. The accident in the parking lot was still a hot topic, but my pre-Forks life wasn't fair game anymore. Lauren Mallory was no longer claiming that I was an unwed mother. _(Yes, I'd heard about that.)_ I'd made it through the day without feeling like I was on display for everyone, at every minute. That's not to say that Mike and Eric weren't as attentive as ever, they just weren't oppressive about it today for some reason. And best of all, I'd given Edward Cullen something to think about besides his apparent need to try and scare me off.

Glancing at my watch, I saw that I was short on time. I stopped at my locker and hurriedly swapped some books in my back pack for those that I would need tonight, and walked as quickly as I dared to the parking lot, waving to the occasional familiar face as I went. Some even waved back. I was settling in…no, WE were settling in. And any lingering homesickness was submerged by a need to know _what,_ and most importantly _who_ Edward Cullen was. That's not to say that I planned to out him, or his family. But for my own peace of mind I _had_ to know. Some intuition told me that it was important that I know. Some people might call that obsessive. I snorted to myself. And some people say po-tah-toe when they really mean po-tay-toe. I needed to know.

Emerging from school, into cold gray drizzle, I walked over to where my truck was parked. Thank god there was no snow or ice today. It was going to be nice to pick Kat up after school without so much baggage weighing me down. I had a goal, even if I didn't fully understand what was driving me when it came to my erstwhile savior Edward Cullen. Still, I had made a decision. For me that was always the hard part. What came afterward was just putting one foot in front of the other. I tossed my backpack into the truck and paused to see Edward emerge from the school with two of his siblings. Ah, there was some of my remaining baggage now.

He didn't even glance in my direction. None of them did. That bothered me a lot more than it should have. My eyes were stinging slightly as I pulled out of the parking lot and I told myself that I wasn't hurt, I was mad…because being hurt over some strange boy made no sense at all. Least of all one like…_him_.

I sighed. I never could lie well, even to myself.

I think I'm in trouble.

Edward's POV

The school day had seemed far longer than necessary, yet one thing that it certainly wasn't anymore was, boring. Outside of our one shared class, I'd kept a covert eye on the girl all day long. As I expected, despite Rosalie's snide assertions to the contrary, Bella had kept her word flawlessly. She'd repeated our agreed upon lie several times, until it took on a life of its own and spread through the faculty and student body. The downside was that Mike Newton was increasingly getting on my nerves. His fantasies were now using me as his surrogate. He spent his gym class with Bella planning a campaign whereby, if he were me, he could parlay saving Bella's life into sleeping with her by the end of the week.

It made me unreasonably angry with the boy; the unreasonable part stemming from the fact that his fantasies were nothing new. How could I be so furious at the boy simply for doing what he usually did? I told myself that it was because he was being disrespectful of young Miss Swan, albeit privately. Her father's taser was looking more inviting all the time.

On top of that, Coach Brian Clapp apparently got his teaching certificate out of a box of Cracker Jacks. What the hell was he thinking, putting Bella in a game of dodge ball this soon after the accident? I don't care if she _did_ say that she felt well enough to play. I'm sure that Carlisle will be displeased once I tell him about it tonight. I was on pins and needles all through Spanish, having to restrain myself from leaping out of my chair every time a ball struck her. Emmett thought that I was going out of my mind. Perhaps he's right.

Prior to my arrival in parking lot at the end of the school day, I had watched through other eyes as she walked to her truck, changing viewpoints as Bella had slowly crossed the lot to her truck; all the while keeping a close eye on Alice, who was keeping a close eye on Bella's immediate future. There would be no repetitions of Tyler Crowley's stupidity, by him or anyone else.

It wasn't until she was in her truck that I allowed myself to focus on the decrepit deathtrap that she was driving. That sort of thing seemed to be emerging as Bella's usual _modus operandi. _To blithely step out of the frying pan and into the fire, and having no clue that she was doing so. What had Charles Swan been thinking when he bought that dinosaur? Aside from _'cheap'_ that is? The only thing that it had to recommend it was the fact that it was built in the days when Detroit still produced _solid _vehicles.

Had she been _inside_ the truck when Crowley had hit it, she probably would have come through without a scratch, however the lack of safety features caused me concern. In a truly serious accident, their lack could get her hurt or killed. My stomach twisted at the thought. I hadn't risked exposing my family to save her life only to have her lose it to some other preventable calamity.

From their own vantage point waiting next to the Volvo, Alice and Jasper had joined me in watching her surreptitiously before Emmett, Rose, and I had even stepped out into the struggling drizzle that had been falling since before lunch. We all winced as her truck engine caught and bellowed to life. Hadn't any of the mechanics that had worked on the thing ever heard of a manifold gasket? It was really Rose's area of expertise; however most of my siblings were competent mechanics if push came to shove. It was simply that none of us had the interest that Rose did. Give me time to find the parts and an hour in our garage, and that snarling monster would be a lot quieter.

She drove out of the parking lot at the only speed her truck seemed to have, slowly, passing our car just as we reached it. Obviously in a hurry to reach the elementary school before it let out for the day. She was trying to hurry in a vehicle that was the exact opposite of hurry. I chuckled at the dichotomy between her desire, and the truck she was using to achieve it. I glanced at Alice and smirked, knowing she'd like to be there to see her young friend, but couldn't. I must have looked like I wanted to say something; either that or she 'saw' something, because she preempted me with a smile.

"_Don't say it, Edward. Remember, I have dirt on you too…now. And it doesn't have to be top secret either, Mr. Colon."_

I grinned and shrugged before I slid into the driver's seat as my siblings took their preferred seats, with Alice riding shotgun. Jasper suspected that there had been an exchange, and had a general idea of its nature from our emotional output. With his gift and his intimate knowledge of his wife's mind, he was better than the rest of the family at decoding mine and Alice's silent 'conversations'. Emmett on the other hand had no clue, and didn't like it. The worrisome one was Rosalie, because she wasn't curious. She was paranoid. She was suspicious of the canary feathers around Alice's mouth. Alice and I would have to have a talk about that. While I'm certain that Rose would destroy herself before she ever considered harming a child, the same wasn't true for what she might do to our little sister in retaliation for bringing said child into our lives. Rose would incinerate her closet. The grin that had never left my face widened imperceptibly. It might almost be worth it to…

"_WHAT DID I SAY, EDWARD?"_

I chuckled quietly as I reversed out of our parking spot and sped for home. Whatever other stresses Bella Swan was introducing into my life, she was bringing with her a bounty of one thing that had been missing for a long time. Fun.

Bella's POV

Dinner tonight is chicken and rice casserole with steamed vegetables; or it will be whenever Charlie gets home. I sighed with frustration. He was twenty minutes late. To the best of my recollection, going back to my childhood, he was almost never late, and if he was going to be held up, he called. I'd called his cell and it had gone to voicemail. It was still light out so I wasn't ready to assume the worst yet, but I was getting, to quote my mother, 'antsy'. I looked up from my homework at the kitchen table to see that Kat, her own schoolwork finished, was still quietly watching TV. I'd plowed through my reading for government and bio, conjugated half a dozen 'shoe' verbs in Spanish, corrected the grammar in a sample paragraph for English, and now I was grinding my way through trig. It was slow going now that I was past where I'd been in Phoenix. Mr. Varner truly was an awful teacher. A nice guy, but a lousy teacher.

I heard a car outside in the driveway, and glanced out the window to see Charlie's cruiser roll to a stop. I sighed with relief as the tension that I hadn't imagined myself feeling left me. He was home, safe. I hastily cleared my work off the table and was starting to set out the plates and silverware when the front door opened. Half a heart-beat later I heard a rising squeal of pure joy that ended in _"PUPPY!"_

I dropped the plate in my hand and spun around awkwardly to see a black blur fly into the kitchen followed by a larger blur that had to be my sister…if the laughter was anything to go by.

Dinner was going to be even later than I could have imagined late tonight.

I looked up to see Charlie standing in the doorway with a look on his face that seemed oscillating between smug and adoring as he watched Kat roll around on the kitchen floor giggling madly. The pudgy black bundle of fur seemed hell-bent on tongue washing every bit of Kat that he or she could reach. Okay, I have to admit, it's a cute puppy. Sue me. I smiled myself and looked back up to see Charlie grinning at me. He lifted and eyebrow as if to say 'Gotcha!', and I simply shrugged back. He and the puppy had won that one.

"Where did he come from?" I asked.

"The wife of one of my cops," he replied. "Her folks got them a purebred female Bernese Mountain dog puppy for their anniversary three years ago, and they had her bred awhile back. They kept one puppy for themselves and sold the rest…and then there was this one. His markings are atypical for a Berner, so they can't sell him as one."

"Atypical?" I looked at the puppy trying to see what could be wrong.

"They're supposed to have a broad white stripe on the muzzle and forehead. His is just barely there. That puts him out of the running as a marketable purebred. So, Mark Callahan and his wife were looking for a good home for him."

The puppy gamboled over to me and started sniffing my shoes, so I bent down and picked him up, only to end up with a thorough tongue bath for my trouble. His nearly solid black head and muzzle looked fine to me. He was warm, soft, and sweet-smelling – all cuddly and perfect for my sister.

"He's ten weeks old right now, but he'll grow. According to Mark, Berners are big dogs when they're full grown. His female certainly is. He'll top out around 100 pounds or maybe a bit more. They're excellent family dogs and they stay pretty playful even when they're grown, but by the same token he'll be big enough to give any wild animal around these parts second thoughts."

I shuddered at the thought of what sort of animal would require a 100 pound dog to run it off and resolved, dog or no dog, to keep a closer eye on Kat in the future.

"What's his name?"

"Larry!" Kat piped up.

But Charlie shook his head. "No, Sweetie, Mark and his wife already gave him a name that he answers to. His name is Emmett."

I gave him a final cuddle and put him down to play with Kat.

"Hi Emmett!" she giggled, as he planted his front paws on her chest in a vain effort to reach her face.

Alice's POV

Silent giggles bubbled up in my throat, where I stood on the edge of the Swan property. Jasper was having hysterics up on his perch in a spruce tree. There would be no visiting for me for a while, until I could get Em…Emm…the puppy used to me. I fell backward against a tree trunk and slid down it, giggling helplessly.

Jasper half fell and half jumped out of his spruce tree to land next to me, still laughing.

"Ali? When the family finds out, I call dibs on telling Emmett."

TBC

_AN2: As always, the feedback button feeds the muse._


	15. Chapter 15

_AN1: This is going up early, because it's my wife's birthday come Saturday. We both have elderly parents, at opposite ends of a 4 1/2 hour drive, who need looking after. So we run a commuter marriage. I just got here today, and I'm going to be busy. We're staying in and I'm cooking her B-Day dinner...and watching Twilight. I don't get to see her that often, so this coming weekend has to count for a lot. There's one paragraph of genuine Meyer in this one. Something from Midnight Sun. So nods to herself for creating the universe (even if the fic writers do manage it better than she ever dreamed of doing). Milk and cookies for the reader who picks out the paragraph. Hugs as always to my betas, Im2xshy and jdficwriter. Party on folks._

* * *

Edward's POV

It has been one week since 'the accident', and my frustration continues to grow. Bella Swan's mind remains as silent as ever to me. Since that first day after the accident she's been polite, but distant. As if she's waiting for something; waiting for me to make some explanation that I dare not make, yet trusting that I will eventually make it. The mental atmosphere around her grows steadily more aggravating as her admirers circle like vultures.

Mike Newton's confidence is growing, day by day, while Jessica Stanley's impatience with young mister Newton's interest in Bella is stoking the fires of her jealousy incrementally higher, day by day. Eric Yorkie was also a constant part of the attendant flock who was trying to find a way to unseat Mike as the self-declared front-runner for Bella's affection. I got a great deal of amusement from Mike Newton's image of himself as Fork's High School's resident alpha male. Of more concern was Tyler Crowley. Newly returned to school, far more delusional and determined than either of the other two put together, he had an actual plan. He was going to use 'making up for the accident' as his cover, and rely on Bella's native politeness to make it impossible for her to refuse. I had a feeling that Tyler was in for a surprise.

Then again, perhaps I would be the one surprised. Bella Swan never seemed to do what I expected. That thought caused me more concern than….

"_EDWARD!"_

I jerked, startled out of my thoughts by Emmett's mental shout and back into the din of the cafeteria. I was so surprised that there was a soft groan from under the table as my fingers contracted and left their mark in the support bracket for a the table to; a mark that I immediately obscured with sweeps of my thumb..

"_Jeez, bro'. Where the hell were you __**at**__? You went 'vampire' in public. You were playing statue for almost a minute and a half. Any longer and a human would have noticed. The last thing you need is to give your human any more fuel for speculation, and Rose any more reason to hate her."_

I clenched my jaw and nodded my acknowledgement with a faint movement of my head. Fortunately, none of the rest of my family had seen fit to comment, though they'd surely noticed and heard my reaction.

I went back to my covert surveillance of Bella Swan through the eyes and ears of her neighbors. By and large, she remained quiet and reserved; contributing only when called upon directly. Much like we did. Hiding in plain sight. It startled me yet again to realize that we had something in common with this young girl.

"Bella, where are you at?" asked Angela, as she caught the object of my curiosity woolgathering too.

"Just thinking about the trig test on Friday," she replied. "I really need to study for the rest of the week, or I'm going to flunk it."

Her words said one thing, but her body language and stress patterns said something else entirely. Whatever she was thinking about, it wasn't trigonometry.

Once again, I found myself wishing desperately for a tiny chink in her wall of silence. Some slight opening that would provide me with some sort of insight. It was a vain hope. I ground my teeth in silent frustration. I couldn't even fill in the gaps the way that her human schoolmates could, by asking direct questions, since my promises to myself and my family had placed her beyond my reach, in a sort of conversational purdah; one that, given Alice's visions, I dared not try to breach lest it cost Bella Swan her human existence. Something I **would not do** merely to satisfy my curiosity.

Jessica seemed to be afraid that Bella was thinking about which of her erstwhile suitors would make a suitable date for the upcoming girls' choice dance, while silently cursing her if she chose Mike. I never thought that I'd have something in common with Jessica Stanley, but….

The bell rang, and I sighed. Lunch was over; time for biology and allowing a tedious little boy play at marking his imagined territory on my lab partner's end of the table. Surely, what had recently become the most excruciating hour of my day.

Bella's POV

Mike was yammering away again about the beach trip in a few weeks. I was seriously beginning to regret agreeing to go, because Mike was starting to act a little proprietary.

As for Edward, I may know next to nothing about boys, but from where I sit, he was cracking. I could feel him cracking from my end of the lab table. Normally he didn't fidget much, but lately he would shift nervously when Mike Newton was chatting me up before biology class. Surely Edward "I'm too perfect for my backpack" Cullen wasn't intimidated by the presence Mike Newton? Edward wouldn't be intimidated by anything or anyone, except possibly my baby sister, and her total lack of guile could intimidate anyone.

I allowed myself a tiny smile, and renewed my resolve to wait Edward Cullen out. We'd see who had more patience.

Alice's POV

"What's on the agenda tonight, darlin'?" Jasper asked as we sped away from the house after school. "More scent marking?"

"Yep. Until I can swing an introduction to Kat's new puppy in a non-threatening situation, we need to keep laying our scent down in their yard so the pup will get used to it. Unless I can meet the puppy with Kat present, I don't dare go in the house, lest I scare the poor thing to death, and, you know, alert the whole house to my presence. You know as well as I do that animals generally don't like us."

"It'll be okay, Ali. I'm sure she misses you."

I slowed to a stop and turned to him. "I miss her too, Jazz, and we haven't even really gotten to know each other yet. Aside from that one night, all the other times I've visited her she's been asleep. The only bridge I really have to her is this instinctive trust she seems to have for me. I can see the future clearly. I just don't know how to make it happen without going slow in the beginning, and it's making me crazy!"

Jasper sighed and kissed me gently. "Patience isn't your long suit, Darlin'. That's what you have me for."

"Among other things," I purred at him, as I grasped his hand. "C'mon. Let's go, wander around the Swan's backyard a bit and wait to see if Kat comes out alone with her new friend," and we were off and running again. "You know," I said in a conversational tone as we darted through the trees, "I'm going to love Bella to death one day, but right now she's annoying me with the 'mother grizzly' impression she has going the last few days. She never lets Kat out unless she's watching. She could give Esme a run for her money."

Jasper laughed out loud. A joyous sound; something he rarely did until recently. The last few weeks he'd laughed more than he had in the previous ten years. I liked the change. His joy was, literally, contagious. It was affecting the atmosphere in the house. Even my bitchy sister and my morose brother couldn't bring it down.

It amused me that, of the two of them, only Edward knew what was behind the shift in the Cullen emotional barometer, but he was powerless to do anything about it. In fact, he was contributing to it. He was fighting a losing battle in his own heart, and on those increasingly frequent occasions when love won a round in his internal war, Jasper said that being around him was a decadent experience. Between us, Bella Swan and I had him hogtied, and we hadn't even met yet. My mind was gloating over the possibilities when we were finally fast friends. Edward would be willing putty in our hands. If nothing else he'd certainly owe me big for getting Kat's dog used to us.

Charlie's POV

Bella was cleaning up after dinner when Kat approached her.

"Sissy?"

"Yes, Kitty Kat?"

"Can Emmy and I go out and play?"

She sighed. "Sweetie, I have homework to do. It's going to get dark soon, and I don't have time to go out with you."

Kat's face fell and she trudged upstairs, with her puppy in tow.

Okay, I'm pretty laid back, but it's time for a little intervention before Bella runs herself into the ground trying to be everywhere at once, and gives her sister a complex in the process. What? I read the books on child rearing that Renee threw at me. More than she did. This was a bit of Renee showing through in Bella that had to be nipped in the bud. I muted the TV and called out.

"Bells?"

"Yes, Dad?"

"Can we talk a minute?" Better to couch it as a request, seeing as I was about to step on her feet.

"Sure, just a minute," she replied.

A minute later she walked out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a hand towel.

"What's up?" she asked.

I sighed. Now that it came down to it, I was unsure of my footing, so I decided to try and lead the horse to water.

"Why are you riding Kat so hard lately?"

She blinked, plainly startled by the accusation, and then looked a little miffed.

"I wasn't aware that I was," she responded frostily.

"You've got to loosen those apron strings a little, Bells. Let her have some independence; make a few mistakes without you watching her every move. I know you love her, and you're uncertain of this place yet," I held up a hand to forestall her answer as she opened her mouth, and I went on, "but I promise you, she's perfectly safe here. No animal predator can get near without the pup sounding off, and no human predator is going to come around the sheriff's kid, certainly not with my car parked out there. And in either case, there's me and my shotgun."

Bella stared at me for a long minute, and then blinked, then blinked again and sniffled. Ah crap! I'd made her cry, damn it! I didn't…

"You think I'm keeping her too close?" she asked.

I sighed. "Bells, there's close, and then there's smothering. What you're doing is smothering when she can't go outside and play unless you're able to sit and watch her. Let her have a little freedom, Sweetheart. I promise you, you'll both be happier for it."

She wiped her eyes on the towel in her hands and sniffed again.

"Do you really think that's what I'm doing?" she asked, looking sad.

"Honey, you barely had time to be a kid yourself, before you had to start looking after your mother. Then you had to look after Kat too. What I'm trying to say is that…that isn't the way it has to be anymore. I appreciate what you do here, I do, but if push came to shove, I can look after myself and the both of you. I know that isn't how it will work out, because that wouldn't be you, but I'm just saying you can ease up a little on the "Super-mom" thing. The situation doesn't require it. Let Kat be a kid and maybe skin a few knees; and let yourself be a teenager, just a little bit. I'll be here for you both."

My oldest daughter sighed deeply, and then came forward to hug me. "When did you get to be so smart?" she muttered into my shoulder, with muted sarcasm.

I snorted. "I always was, Bells, you just never gave me a chance to use it on you." I didn't finish the sentence the way that I wanted to, by saying that living with Renee made her too self-sufficient for me to do any good during the short stints of time that she got to spend with me. But I for damn sure thought it.

She kissed my cheek and we both flushed a bit. Neither of us are really touchy feely types, but that makes the rare times when we do all the more special.

"Now," I said, "there's still about 45 minutes of daylight left, I think that's enough time for Kat to burn off some excess energy."

"Do you want to tell her?"

"Nope," I shook my head. "I don't want to give her the idea that we aren't a united front. Otherwise, anytime you issue an order that she doesn't like, she'll try playing the 'daddy card' by coming to me for another opinion…while not telling me about yours." I smiled at her proudly. "You're a good 'mom', Bells; I don't want to undercut you. So telling her is your job. This way, _you_ changed your mind; I didn't change it for you."

She nodded thoughtfully. "Thanks, Dad," she replied.

I loved the fact that there was no hesitation, like there was when she usually addressed me and wanted to call me Charlie, but stopped herself because she knew that it bothered me. Of all the things that Renee could have done to hurt me, teaching my daughter to address me as a stranger hurt the worst.

She turned and walked up stairs, and no more than two minutes later, Kat came whooping down the stairs with Emmett bouncing along behind her.

"Put on your coat and hat!" Bella shouted from upstairs.

It warmed me that she didn't come down to check on it herself, but left it to me. Thank God Katrina was a biddable, intelligent child, because she brought her coat and hat to me. I put it on her and zipped her up, tugged her hat into place, and checked her shoe strings; all with the practiced ease of a veteran parent.

"You know the rules, Katrina," I said sternly.

She nodded. "Yup, I do, Daddy. Stay in the backyard, and don't talk to strangers."

"Okay then," I replied, over the lump in my throat. "You and Em go and play. You only have until just before dark."

"I know, thanks, Daddy," she kissed me and ran for the back door, shouting with childish glee.

I sat back in my easy chair, and rubbed my cheek where my girls had kissed me; one on each side. Dad. Daddy. Twice each. In one night. I smiled as I un-muted the Sonics game. Somehow, watching Seattle give the Lakers a well-deserved thrashing didn't seem as important now. I touched my cheek again and grinned.

Sometimes it was good to be Charlie Swan, and tonight was one of those times.

Edward's POV

I watched the Swan house silently from where Jasper and I were perched in a tall pine, twenty feet back from the tree line of the Swan property. Alice was on the ground, hoping for a chance to see the child Katrina tonight and, with less than an hour of light left, it looked like she just might get her wish.

We could hear the discussion between father and daughter clearly. Normally, I pay little attention to the mechanics of human families, but Bella Swan's family was as fascinating as she was. And Bella was indeed someone to hold your interest.

I don't know what possessed me to come here tonight. Interest or no interest, I should have stayed away - should have stayed away - but some deep desire wouldn't allow me peace until I knew that Bella Swan, and, by extension, her family, was safe for the night. I told myself that I was monitoring Alice's intrusions and making certain that Jasper kept his distance, but that was a thin rationalization for my simple need to see the girl.

I owed Mike Newton a tiny debt of gratitude, because his ceaseless prattling opened occasional windows into Bella's mind. In brief flashes, I could see past her silence into the gentle soul that I could see reflected in the depths of her eyes brown eyes. Like her seeming endless patience in dealing with Mike, and the kindness with which she handled his flirting, embarrassing though it was to her. The list of her positive qualities just kept growing.

Through her conversations with Mike, I was able to add the most important quality to my list, the most revealing of them all, as simple as it was rare. Bella was good. All the other things added up to that whole—kind and self-effacing and unselfish and loving and brave—she was good through and through.

Now I could see that it was a family trait of sorts. Charles Swan loved both girls equally as his daughters. It never occurred to him that it should be otherwise. But he was a hard man too, when he had to be. Our research on the movers and shakers of Forks, when we were discussing moving back here, had shown the police chief to be a tough, fair, and honest man. The latter wasn't necessarily a good thing; if we were in trouble and needed an edge, but the fair more than made up for it. We'd seen the fair tonight as he advised his older daughter on parenting.

And Bella, wise beyond her years, seemed to be bright enough to realize that she didn't know everything, and had accepted his help in dealing with her anxiety over her sister. Hence, the child would be bursting out the door any minute, with her new friend trailing behind her. Emmett. When Alice had told me last night I nearly broke down laughing right on the spot.

My husky brother had better watch his back after this. The Swans were unwittingly providing me with the means for massive retaliation against any of Emmett's teasing.

Right on cue, the child burst out the back door and began carrying on like a little Indian, whooping and running with her puppy, who raced alongside her. However, eventually she slowed to a panting stop in the middle of the yard, and studied the forest. More to the point, she studied two spots in the forest; the clump of bracken and ferns near the garage that concealed Alice and the top of the pine tree that hid Jasper and I. I had the distinct feeling that she was looking right at me. It was unnerving.

Thank God I could read her mind. The fact that I hadn't paid attention that day in the hospital I could chalk up to having other things on my mind. But I was paying attention now. She knew that we were here, and roughly where we were. By 'we' I meant, Alice and I, by name. For some reason, she wasn't registering Jasper at all. She was such an amazing child. Every bit as fearless as her sister, sweet to the core, yet with a hint of the imp in her that made her 'feel' like Alice did.

After a moment she sank to one knee, and petted her puppy as she glanced back over her shoulder at the Swan home, then she turned her eyes back toward the forest and spoke in an uncertain, yet somehow hopeful voice.

"Hello?"

Kat's POV

"Hello?"

She's here, I know she is! I can feel it! I think she's been to see me when I'm sleepin' cause the room smells like her when I wake up. Sissy and Daddy don't notice it, but I do. She smells like cookies and flowers. I can't wait for her to meet Emmy. Eddie Colon is here too, I can feel him, but what's he doin' up in that tree? It's so high! What's he doin' here anyway? Did he come to see Sissy?

Emmy's acting funny, like he's scared. If I pet him, maybe he won't be scared.

"Don't be scared Emmy. It's just Alice. She's nothing to be scared of because I know she's nice. And Eddie Colon is nothing to be scared of either. He saved Sissy, and he's nice too."

I guess Alice needed me to come to her. I checked the house to make sure daddy and Sissy weren't looking. They'd be making me come in soon, an' I had to see Alice! So I headed for the bushes where she felt the strongest. Em is following, but he keeps making these whiny noises, so I guess he's not happy.

Edward's POV

"Eddie Colon?" whispered Jasper.

Jasper couldn't reveal that bit of information without giving away where he'd picked it up, but if the day came when he could, he either had some good fodder for blackmail, or Emmett would just have a field day. Between the child and her puppy, our family would be in turmoil.

I was torn between irritation and wonder. Irritation at how easily this child penetrated my defenses, and wonder at her judging me to be 'nice', which in her lexicon was an untarnished seal of approval. Alice had hinted that the child was talented, but this seemed like a poor excuse for a talent. Something halfway between Jasper and I, yet part of neither, and which apparently operated against her survival by making her trust the wrong sort of creatures. Clearly it wasn't only Bella that I'd need to look after. I paused as I caught my thoughts going somewhere that they shouldn't. _Look after?_ When had I appointed myself as Bella Swan's protector?"

"You know, Edward," Jasper said quietly, "if you were anymore conflicted right now, I'd say that there are two of you in this tree." He snickered.

I made an internal note for the future. Revenge on Jasper – a must do.

Alice's POV

I reached into my pocket for the plastic baggie containing the doggie treats. My research had revealed that my best bet for finding my way quickly and quietly into a puppy's heart, was through his stomach. These chicken wrapped yam bits were billed as being what every dog or puppy wanted. Personally they sounded gross to me, and they didn't smell much better. But if they worked, I wasn't going to complain. After a tedious hour spent in the pet aisle of the Thriftway, my 'sight' said that they would. Kat and her puppy were perhaps ten feet away when I slowly tossed a treat in the dog's path. My heavens the bag was right. He went right after it as soon as it hit the ground.

"Kat?" I stepped out of my hiding place and slipped behind the weather-beaten garage and knelt down. "Stay where your father and sister can see you, until I say, otherwise they'll make you come inside."

"Alice!" she squealed. She started toward me, and then checked herself as she remembered my instructions. Instead she knelt down next to her puppy that was still chewing his treat, and began scratching his ears. I hadn't made a study of human children until lately, but I wonder how many other children her age had that sort of impulse control. Not many I'd bet.

"Have you been okay, Sweetie? Is school okay?" I asked, trying to make idle conversation, if such a thing is possible with a five year old.

She shrugged as she kept petting her dog, who was looking remarkably relaxed in my presence. "It's okay," she said. "I have new friends, and the teacher is nice. But I still miss mommy and Phil. But don't tell daddy, 'cause I think that'd make him sad."

A perceptive child to boot, though I suppose that went with her gift, whatever it was.

My inner eye watched the future. Bella had just peeked out her upstairs window and saw Kat quietly loving her pet near the garage. She would be happy for the next fifteen minutes. Charlie would be looking out the back door in 5-4-3-2-1…and there he was. He spotted Kat, and scanned his yard, then went back to his television. He'd be good until Bella called Kat in, in fifteen minutes.

"Okay sweetie, we have a couple of minutes. Let Aunt Alice give you a hug?"

Kat bounced to her feet and launched herself at me. Yes, the word is launched. She apparently did everything headlong. I caught her in my arms and kissed her cheek as I gave her a careful hug, before shifting her to my hip with my arm around her. She still smelled delightfully of sage and honey.

"Here, Emmy," she called. "Come here."

The pup looked cautious, and rightfully so. His senses were telling him that his mistress was cuddled up to a dangerous predator. I reached into my pocket and retrieved another treat, holding it out where he could see it. He edged forward cautiously and sniffed the treat and my hand before taking the bit of food and settling down to chew. I reached out and scratched his ears gently, and he accepted it. Success! I'd never really paid attention, but he _was_ a cute little guy. Emmett would be proud of his namesake…or I'd make him suffer.

"We don't have too long, Honey. I just wanted you to know that I hadn't forgotten you."

"I knew you didn't. I'd wake up in the morning and smell when you'd been there." She leaned in and took a deep breath from the blouse I was wearing. "You smell like cookies and flowers. Really nice ones, like Phil used to get my mommy." She frowned. "But you stopped coming. Why?"

I hugged her, as I fed little Emmett another treat, and scratched his ears. That was all for the treats tonight; since according to the package that was one over the limit for a dog his size. In a startling act of trust, he licked my hand. I didn't know whether to be grossed out, or melt into a puddle. Earning the trust of an animal isn't something that we ever put any effort into. It seems unfair to make your potential dinner trust you.

"It was this little menace here that forced me to stay away, Katie," I said, running my hand through the puppy's thick fur. "Animals don't really like me or my family much, so I couldn't just come in your house like I did before without scaring him and having him raise a fuss."

"Oh," she responded quietly. "So…you can't come and see me anymore?"

"Oh no, Sweetie! That's why I'm here now. To get this little fella used to me. I don't think he's quite there yet, though."

Kat pouted. "Are you sure?"

"Sorry, Honey, I'm sure." My inner awareness warned me. "Okay, Kat, your sister's going to call you in a few minutes. It's time to be where your daddy and sister can see you." I kissed her pink baby cheek and gave her a final squeeze before she walked out into the open where Bella could see her as I vanished back into my hiding place.

"Psst! Alice?"

"What Kat?"

"What's Eddie Colon doing up in the tree? I can tell he's there."

Apparently she could sense the presence of anyone she'd previously met. "He's here watching out for you and your sister, and his last name is Cullen, not Colon…same as mine."

"Why?"

"Because, between you 'n me, he likes your sister." There was a faint hiss from the treetops, and I smiled to myself.

"No, I already knew that; Sissy likes him too. I meant, why the same last name?"

I grinned. So perceptive and yet so totally unaffected.

"Because he's my brother."

Her eyes grew round.

Then the Swan's back door opened and Bella's voice rang out. "Time to come in, Kat. You need a bath before bedtime!"

My playmate spared me one last glance and ran for the house.

I sniffed my blouse. I was going to hate it when I had to take this off tonight and clean up.

There has a whisper of displaced air and Jasper's arms slid around me from behind.

"Are we done for tonight, Darlin'?" he murmured.

"Yep, time to go home." I paused. "Where's Edward?"

"Sulking in the treetops," he answered with a snicker. "When I left him, he was muttering something about you being a 'damn yenta'."

I giggled. "That's me, the world's first vampire yenta."

He kissed me and nuzzled the back of my neck. "Okay then, matchmaker. Let's go scrub the human scent off of you, and then let's see if you can make me a match."

I turned in his arms and kissed him.

"You're on."

TBC

_AN2: Be one with the feedback button._


	16. Chapter 16

_AN1: Hola readers! Many thanks to all of you who've left feed back, and for all of those Favorite and Alert tags. They do an old man's heart good. Edward gets a little closer to the point of no return in this chapter. Personally I think he passed that point way back on that first day in the cafeteria, but the man could give stubborn lessons to a jackass. There's a little dab of SM in here, so nods to the lady for letting us play in her sandbox. As always, thanks to my kind and thoughtful betas, Im2xshy and jdficwriter. Have fun!  
_

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Edward's POV

After the accident, I noticed that time seemed to be behaving oddly. For most of my life, once I had adapted to being what we are, the days, months, and years passed unheeded. By the time I was in my fifth decade, I noticed that I could focus on a project to a degree that would let me lose weeks at a time. I considered this to be a desirable thing.

Now though, time seemed to be divided into two categories; time with Bella and time without Bella. The time with Bella was never enough, yet it could absorb me so completely that I would lose track of myself; something that I didn't want to do. I wanted to savor that time, drawing from it every morsel of comfort that I could. The time without Bella dragged interminably, with each moment seeming to stretch endlessly to the next. I knew that it wasn't right, this attraction to her. I also knew Alice's opinion on that issue, and as time wore on, I was more and more prepared to allow that she was correct in her belief about the cause, because it wasn't going away. If anything it was growing stronger. That still didn't make it right, for me, or for Bella.

The weeks passed as Alice continued her campaign to win over Katrina Swan's puppy. Truth be told, I thought that particular battle was over after the third doggie treat, maybe even after the second. After that, it was the puppy winning Alice over. Alice had added a dog brush to her supply stash. Little Emmett got groomed every time she was over there, which was every other day now. She was still stuck behind the garage though, as there were no other decent hiding places, on or near the Swan property, which would allow her to interact with Katrina while staying out of sight.

Alice was beginning to grow more impatient to begin an open friendship with Bella and Katrina Swan, which, in her eyes, depended on me 'doing something about Bella'. Well, as I'd told Bella that day in the hospital, she would just have to learn to enjoy disappointment. I _was_ doing something about Bella. I was doing the right thing and staying out of her life, just as Alice should be staying out of Katrina's.

When I explained my position to Alice, yet again, she simply rolled her eyes and muttered something about me being a 'hypocritical jackass'. So, every other night I was treated to my very own 'dog and vampire' show. I even relocated my perch for a better view, while Jasper chose to stay in our original aerie. Despite Alice's assertions he didn't feel like he was safe to be around Katrina yet, and as such, didn't want the child to be aware of him. That didn't stop him from enjoying his wife's antics when she was laying on her back giggling helplessly as the puppy licked her face. He was happier than I could recall seeing him in all the decades I've known him. I envied him, and I'm sure that he knew it.

Tonight Alice was going to try for an 'after hours' visit. She'd promised Katrina as much. She'd surreptitiously had a copy made of the house key that Charlie left under the eaves in front. You would think that the chief of police would have a more imaginative hiding place. Apparently using that key bothered her conscience, but using a bootleg copy didn't. Sometimes Alice has a mind like a pretzel. I told her that it was presumptuous of her, and she stuck her tongue out at me. So much for being 'older and wiser'.

On the 'time with Bella' front, my _own_ patience was wearing thin with the herd of sheep that comprised her flock of boyish suitors. The date of the girl's choice spring dance was drawing closer, and each one was waiting for Bella to ask him to the dance. Each one preening for her whenever they could to try and gain her attention. Meanwhile, girls like Lauren Mallory and Jessica Stanley were increasingly beginning to dislike her as she continued to unwittingly garner the attention of boys that they considered to be rightfully their property. Meanwhile, the boys themselves were losing patience and trying to think of ways to force Bella's hand, to force her to ask them.

Cowards.

We were just leaving the cafeteria behind when Alice gasped and abruptly yanked both Jasper and I out a side door. This was the last thing that I needed. Newton had finally screwed up his courage enough to approach Bella directly, and I wanted to be there to see it!

"What, Alice?" I growled, hoping that she hadn't seen me fail yet again.

She had that look that said she was focused on her inner eye. As I watched her vision unfold, I cursed internally. Rose was becoming suspicious of our regular disappearances together. Our normally oblivious sister was starting to take an interest in our whereabouts. If Alice kept her date with Katrina tonight, Rose would follow her, and the results would be ugly. I watched as Alice played with various scenarios to handle the situation, and the one that finally emerged immediately made me rebel.

"No, Alice!"

"But Edward, you're the only other one of us that she knows. She trusts you!" Alice threw back.

"No, absolutely not. I keep watch over the Swans because I can't seem to help myself. I don't interact with them. I won't!" I snapped. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to class."

I turned away, wanting to run at vampire speed, but constrained to a normal human pace.

"_This isn't over, Edward."_ came her thought. Then, sensing the source of my preoccupation, her mind voice continued softly. _"Don't worry; she's going to say no."_

"_But no to who?" _I wondered.

Despite the delay, I still arrived in Biology II ahead of Bella and her erstwhile suitor, Mr. Newton. He was steadfast in his habit of walking her to every class that he conveniently could, thus staking her out as his territory early on. At first, he'd allowed Eric to share the privilege, but as the competition for the Fair Isabella heated up, Mike had politely invited Eric to make himself scarce.

Thus, it came to pass that I had a front row seat to Mike Newton's humiliation. It was made all the more entertaining because Bella, true to her kind heart, was gentle in her rebuff, and pointed him in Jessica's direction. She never went out of her way to hurt anyone. Bella didn't humiliate Mike. Mike humiliated Mike.

Still, I ground my teeth in frustration. Was she really going to Seattle? Was this just about Jessica? Was there someone else that she preferred?

I did owe young Mr. Newton for one thing; in his anger over his rejection, as he cast about for a reason for Bella's refusal, fixating on first one rival, then another, I finally realized, with sudden insight, the source of my ongoing fury over his attentions to Bella Swan. I was jealous; and doubly so because Newton and his fellow drones had a right to court her, and I didn't. It made me ashamed of myself; that some part of me that felt I had a right to claim Bella as my own.

No, she deserved better than what amounted to an animate corpse as a suitor. The thought pained me, all the more so because it was true. I was a monster; the stuff of nightmares. I could watch over her and her family, but that was all I had a right to hope for. Something that sweet and that pure could not possibly be meant for me. I saw a brief vision of Bella, dressed in white, on her father's arm, walking up the aisle to meet some faceless man. Someday she would be happy, with someone else. That was as it should be.

With that thought, I felt a hollow open up in my chest; a great aching emptiness that felt like nothing ever would, or ever could, fill it.

Bella was destined for someone else.

Bella's POV

With my head down and my eyes closed, I rubbed gently at my temples. There! Perhaps that would mollify Jessica, though what she saw in Mike I was beginning to wonder. He'd left her hanging in an effort to get _me_ to ask him out. Boys had never been this complicated back in Phoenix. Let the word go forth from this time and place that Bella Swan does not date!

I opened my eyes to find Edward staring at me with what I could swear was a hint of sorrow in his eyes. I expected him to look away as soon as I caught his eyes on me, but he didn't. If anything, his stare intensified, as if he were bending all of his efforts to understanding me. The familiar butterflies were back in my stomach. Okay, maybe _one_ date. No need to be a fanatic about it.

For a long moment we were both frozen, our eyes locked, as if something was trying to communicate itself to both of us. Then Mr. Banner broke the spell as he called on Edward for an answer; something that he rarely ever did.

"The Krebs Cycle", Edward answered, without missing a beat. He turned away, seeming to drag his eyes away from me with great reluctance.

I stared at him a moment longer, then I opened my textbook and binder, as I prepared to take notes on the lecture. What had just happened there? Had the weeks-long impasse been broken? I looked away so that he couldn't see my face and allowed myself a slight smile. A smile that I lost at once when I noticed Mike glaring at me; no, actually he was glaring at something over my shoulder. I groaned internally as I saw the jealousy plainly written on his face. I didn't need to be a mind-reader to know what he was thinking. I'd turned him down for a date, and gone straight into that tableau with Edward. Now I'd have to be doubly certain to be out of town that weekend. What _had_ been just an excuse suddenly became firm plans.

Why was this happening to me? It never had before!

I looked studiously up at the board for several minutes before risking a glance at Edward. He was back to his stoically indifferent façade. I breathed a little sigh of relief. Perhaps he hadn't noticed Mike's death glare? I could only hope. Fortunately Mike had abruptly turned his eyes toward the front of the room and hadn't looked our way since.

Edward's POV

What. Was. That? She had that Mona Lisa smile again, just for a moment, until she caught Mike's angry glare. While I was outwardly calm, inwardly I was furious. In that moment, it took nearly as much self-control to keep from killing that boy as it did to save Bella's life that first day. His hate I can manage. I've had humans hate me before, for many reasons. However he _doesn't_ get to direct it at Bella Swan. I directed my own predator's stare back at him and watched him turn pale and suddenly become extremely interested in today's lecture on rotifers.

What was that smile for? For me? A forlorn hope, one that I had no right to, blossomed in me as I tried yet again to plumb the mental silence that surrounded her. Inwardly, I writhed in frustration. I would sell the soul that I no longer had for just one whisper. Just a hint of what was going on behind those beautiful eyes.

The rest of the hour passed with me watching Bella, and sparing the occasional glance for the teacher, whenever I knew that he was going to look our way. I reasoned that I might as well drink in the sight of her now. Due to my jealous rage, my self-control was completely shot to pieces. At that moment, I wanted to see her. More than anything, I simply wanted to enjoy looking at her. Her soft, sweet smelling hair, her pale, peaches and cream skin, her beautiful blush; I drank it all in like a man who had been dying of thirst, and truthfully, I had been. Just not the sort of thirst that I was used to fighting.

The bell rang, and as she gathered her books and prepared to leave, I decided to throw caution to the wind, just for the moment.

"Bella?"

She froze and slowly turned to look at me.

"What, you're talking to me again?" she snapped.

I was taken aback. Perhaps that smile hadn't been meant for me after all.

"Not really," I responded. I looked down for a moment, and then looked back up, keeping my eyes earnest. I needed her to believe me. "I just wanted to apologize. I know that I'm being rude, but this really is for the best. It really isn't safe for us to be friends."

Her eyes softened slightly. "Safe for whom?" she asked

I'm sure that I looked pained. "For both of us," I replied.

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and then she gathered her books in her arms. "You know, if Kat hadn't given you her unconditional seal of approval, I would have suspected that you were sorry you hadn't let that van kill me."

That almost made me angry. Almost. How could she doubt the one decent thing that I'd done since meeting her? The mention of her sister stopped my anger in its tracks.

"Why does your little sister's opinion matter so much?" As if I didn't already know.

"She always knows the good ones from the bad ones, and she says that you're definitely on the side of the angels."

I sighed. Angels.

"If there's one thing that I'm not, it's an angel," I responded, though I was an angel of sorts. I was a guardian angel, or at least the closest thing to it that Bella had, since her own seemed to be on strike at the moment. I snorted to myself at the oxymoron; a vampire angel.

"So, are we talking again?" she asked.

I shook my head regretfully. "No, Bella, that wouldn't be wise."

There it was again; that little smile, just before she turned away. "Then come and see me when you _wise_ up, because I think I could handle being friends," she said, as she headed for the door.

Just as she crossed the threshold, she stumbled and dropped her books. She was standing there stiffly, as if angry at herself, not looking down, so I moved swiftly to gather her books for her. When she started to stoop to gather them, I held them up to her.

She sighed. "You know, just once I'd like to make a good exit with you," she mumbled.

I chuckled. "I thought that it was a very good exit. I'll be smiling over it for the rest of the day."

She flushed. "I'm so happy that I could provide you with some entertainment," she growled. "Next time I'll actually try to fall down."

I cringed at the idea of her being hurt and shook my head. "That won't be necessary." I glanced at my watch. "The first bell will ring soon. You had better get to gym class."

She frowned at the mention of gym. "Gee, thanks for the reminder,_ Edward,_" she said, before dashing off down the hall. Somehow I doubted her gratitude.

I stared after her for a long moment, and then walked to Spanish class on autopilot. I sat there unseeing, as Emmett watched me with curious eyes. When she'd said my name, even in irritation, for the briefest of moment, that hollow ache in my chest had lessened.

I knew what that meant. My resolve was failing.

There was only one thing to do. I had to leave, and this time I had to stay gone. I could no longer pretend that I was only in _danger_ of falling in love with Bella Swan. And, as such, I couldn't allow myself the luxury of continued contact with her. It was the right thing to do. I would see her one more time and then leave. The pain in my traitor heart eased at the thought of seeing her again, even if only once more.

I sighed. This was going to break Esme's heart, but it couldn't be helped. I'd make it up to her somehow.

My course decided, I managed to pay attention through the last fifteen minutes of the class, and that meant finally paying attention to Emmett too. He was curious—Emmett was not overly intuitive about the shades in other's moods, but he could see the obvious change in me. He wondered what had happened to remove the unrelenting glower from my face. He struggled to define the change, and finally decided that I looked hopeful. I studied myself through Mrs. Goff's eyes. Is that what hope looks like? Peaceful, and resolute? How odd that I should launch what was sure to be a painful period in my life on such a positive note.

Across the building, I picked up Alice's thoughts. The future was a topsy turvy mess again for her.

"_Edward Cullen!"_ came her mental shout. _"What have you done?"_

Not enough, Alice. Not yet. But I will, because I have to.

Bella's POV

I had grown comfortable enough with Forks, and Kat's school, to wait by the car for her, instead of right outside the door. I was going along with Charlie's 'let her build some independence' idea. It made me nervous, but I suppose that I'll get used to it. After all, I had reason to know that bad things could happen in a perfectly safe parking lot.

It was just as well that I waited here. It would give me a few extra moments to get my temper under control as the use of the phrase 'parking lot' brought it back to a rolling boil.

Arrrgh! As if Mike wasn't bad enough, Eric ambushed me at my truck as I left school. At least he was more direct. He flat out broke the 'girl's choice' rule, and just asked me out. I tried to be polite, but I'm sure that I hurt his feelings. For me it was a no win situation. I _hate_ being put in a position where I hurt people. Then, the cherry on top was yet another act of treachery on Cullen's part, when he and his stinking shiny silver Volvo blocked my escape route from the parking lot long enough for Tyler to catch up with me! Tyler was so damn arrogant about the whole thing, that I wouldn't have minded hurting him, if I could. And I swear, even as far away as he was, and _from_ _inside his car_, Edward heard every word. He was literally shaking with laughter afterward. Jerk!

What _was_ Edward's game? Was he simply trying to aggravate me to death? Trying to make up for the van? No wonder I'd never gotten anywhere with boys before. You needed a decoder ring to understand them! Arrrgh!

The bell rang and Kat's school mates spilled out of the front doors in a noisy stampede.

"Sissy!" called a familiar voice from the middle of the mob. "_So much for waiting at the car,_" I thought, as I waded into the swarm, meeting her halfway. Mrs. Bascome was with her. She latched onto my hand as I studied her face with a frown. I reached out and traced the bruise on her right cheek.

"How did you get that black eye, Katrina Alexis?" I asked, as I glanced up at her teacher. She was smiling, so it couldn't have been tragic.

"Oh, it was so stupid! I was coming back from the playground, and I wasn't looking when the door closed. I walked into it. I'm okay, Sissy. Honest."

I looked at Mrs. Bascome for confirmation, and she nodded. "One of the boys was holding the door for the other students, when someone inside called his name and he thoughtlessly abandoned his post, and let the door close just as Kat reached it."

"I wasn't looking," Kat chimed in.

"In any event," Mrs. Bascome continued, "there was some immediate swelling, so my TA took her to the school nurse for some ice while I had the office contact your father. He came by for a few minutes and said that it would be okay for her to finish the day."

I nodded. Charlie and I would have to have a talk. I hate surprises. Especially ones like this. I love my father, and I appreciated him not wanting to burden me with things like this, but I'd been mothering Kat longer than he'd been fathering her. Giving her some independence and providing me with time to be a teenager instead of a working mom is one thing, cutting me out of the loop is something else. I want to know things like this, as they happen. A simple text would have sufficed. I wasn't carrying my over-priced cell phone for nothing.

"Thank you for looking after her so well, Mrs. Bascome.," I said. And I really meant it. She was a sweet lady, and Kat loved her.

"Believe me, Bella," she replied, "it's a pleasure. She's well-behaved and bright, and to top it all, she's brave. She never even shed a tear today, the entire time."

I chuckled. "She's probably had worse during her gymnastics training." I gave Kat's hand a gentle squeeze. "C'mon Kitty Kat. Let's go, I have to get home and make supper, or Charlie will order pizza."

Kat looked at me like I'd grown a second head when I implied that ordering pizza was a bad thing. As an occasional change of pace, I didn't mind. But Charlie treated pizza like a food group. In a lot of ways my father ate like a teenager.

I led Kat out to the truck and helped her in, and sighed as I secured her safety harness.. Between looking after my father and my sister, and going to school, and ducking overly friendly boys, my life was complicated enough. I didn't need Edward Cullen adding to it. At least, that's what I kept telling myself.

Yeah, I didn't believe me either.

Kat's POV

We had a nice tuna ca…cas…caser-thing that Sissy made for supper. I did some stuff for school, then they let me go out and play early, 'cause Sissy wanted to talk to daddy about something. Emmy and I keep checking, but Alice isn't there, where she's s'posed to be. I think Emmy is missing the treats and the way she brushes him. I miss Alice a lot. Yesterday was one of the days she doesn't come. She promised that tonight she'd sing to me, after Sissy and Daddy were asleep. But she isn't there.

But her brother is. He's always there, even when she isn't. It's getting later, and they'll call me in soon. I miss her.

I sat down on the old log behind the garage. I know I'm supposed to stay where they can see me, but I don't care. I want to see Alice! Emmy got between my knees and put his front feet on my tummy, so he could lick my face. He doesn't like it when I'm sad, so he tries to cheer me up.

"Alice? Where are you?"

Edward's POV

While the Swan family went about their business, I'd been replaying the scene from earlier today in the parking lot. It was my last hurrah; a memory to tide me over in the bleak times to come; a memory of how lovely she was when she was angry; a memory that told me that none of those shallow drones that I had to stand aside for could possibly hold her interest. Tonight I intended to follow in Alice's footsteps. I would enter the Swan residence once the family was asleep, and spend some time with Bella – saying the goodbyes that she would never hear. Yes, it was disgusting, and stalker-like, but I was leaving. If she had known of my plight, I don't think that she would have begrudged me the right to see her in her unguarded moments, just once before I did the right thing, for her safety. Then again, she might run away screaming, which would be a good thing.

Ultimately, it wouldn't matter. My plan was in place. By tomorrow morning, I would be a fading memory, and Bella would be safe.

Of course, that was before Katrina Swan came outside to 'play'. She made several half-hearted attempts at playing with her puppy, but it was plain that both she and the pup were expecting someone; someone who wouldn't be coming tonight. The little girl sat down on an old stump behind the garage and seemed to shrink into herself.

"Alice? Where are you?" she spoke plaintively.

I tried to remain unmoved, but the first sniffle was followed by a second, and then a third. I reasoned to myself that the child couldn't be seen to have been crying without some sort of explanation for it. Both Chief Swan and Bella were perceptive people. They would most certainly notice and start interrogating her about it. She had shown considerable discretion so far even for some adults, but it was one thing to keep a secret by omission; it was another to keep a secret under direct interrogation by the authority figures in your life. I couldn't allow that.

At least that's what I told myself as I abandoned the high post and silently moved lower in the canopy, to the oak tree that I usually sat in to watch Alice's floor show on the nights she was here. A familiar mixture of scents filled the air before I could even get settled in my new perch. I noticed a fluttering scrap of cloth tied to a tree branch, it was the torn sleeve of a blouse that Alice had obviously worn here. There was a small plastic bag attached to it. I tore it loose and examined the contents. Half a dozen dog treats, a key, and a note.

"_I told you so. I had the key made when I made mine. I left some clothes for you in my stash by the river, just in case. Just be yourself. They'll love you. - A."_

Alice and I had argued about this at school and during the short time afterward, before she and Jasper took off on a circuitous route into the foothills of the Cascades, with Rose and Emmett trailing them. Alice told me that, before the night was over, Rose would learn never to second guess her again. And neither would I. She had seen that I would talk to Katrina. I had seen it in her mind, and stubbornly asserted that I would do no such thing. Yet here I was, staring down at a child who was probably only moments from weeping, and the practical considerations were the furthest thing from my mind.

I sighed, looked down at the plastic bag in my hand, and changed my plans for the evening...slightly

Kat's POV

She's not coming. I know it. Was it something I did? I'm trying not to cry, 'cause it'll make Emmy sad an' Sissy and Daddy will wonder why. I was wondering if I should just quit and go inside, when something fell out of the tree by me. I jumped 'cause it scared me at first and Emmy went to see what it was. Whatever it was, he laid down and started chewing on it. I got real excited, because it looked like…

I looked up hoping to see Alice, but I forgot that I couldn't feel her. But I _could_ feel Eddie which is why I wasn't scared when he came out of Alice's place in the bushes. He stood really still and smiled at me.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he said back, being real quiet.

Edward's POV

And that's all it took. Katrina popped up off of her stump like a jack-in-the-box and wrapped herself around one leg. The pup growled at that and I tossed him another treat. I couldn't read Bella, of course, but I could see that Charlie was aware of the time. I had ten minutes, at the outside.

Pulling out a handkerchief, I gently pried Katrina loose from my leg and knelt down to wipe her eyes. Reading the proper thing to do in her mind, I held it to her nose and said 'blow'. She did, and once I wiped her nose I tilted her chin up so that I could see her face.

"Now, little one, what's the matter?"

"Where's Alice?" she asked plaintively. "Is she mad at me?"

"Heavens no, she's not mad at you, little one!" I said, looking aghast.

"My name is Kat!" she snapped, sounding petulant.

I suppressed a smile. She was every bit as assertive as her sister. It made me wonder what their mother was like. "She's not mad at you, Katrina. I promise. It's just that something came up tonight that she had to deal with, so she asked me to come for her."

"You were here for a while and you didn't talk to me. You're here all the time and you've never talked to me before!" she accused.

I sighed. "I know, Katrina, I was being stubborn. I'm sorry."

My hearing picked up movement in the house. Bella was coming downstairs.

"Katrina, your sister is about to call you in. You need to get out there where she can see you."

She threw her arms around me and tried to burrow into my chest. "Alice promised to come see me tonight. Will you?"

I chuckled. "I have something to do first, but I'll be there. You may be asleep though, when I get there."

I was startled was she planted a sloppy peck on my cold cheek. "That's okay, Alice has been there lotsa times when I was asleep. My room smells like her when she's been there." She inhaled deeply. "You smell good too. Like flowers and kinda sweet, like candy."

I chuckled and gave her the gentlest of hugs. "I'll take that as a compliment, Katrina. Now you better scoot before you scare your sister again."

She kissed my cheek again before dashing out into the yard while her puppy lingered as he regarded me hopefully. I scratched his ears briefly and then faded back into the forest. He stood a moment longer, and then dashed after his mistress. At that exact moment, Bella's rich warm voice called out… "Kat! Time to get ready for bed!"

I settled back in my tree to wait. It would be hours yet before I could do anything, so I dwelt in my memories, replaying the parking lot scene again.

God, she was truly beautiful when she was angry.

TBC

_AN2: The feedback button is singing the blues, just for you._


	17. Chapter 17

_AN1: Hola, my reading public! As many if not most of you are no doubt aware, my mother is very ill. This has kept me from writing regularly, causing me to miss my Friday posting deadline. Sorry. I've been writing chapter 17 in bits and pieces ever since she first went into the hospital. I finished it up after I went home from the hospice last night. Thank God for my laptop. My ever efficient betas Im2xshy and jdficwriter have performed a major miracle of beta work and returned my finished chapter in jig time. They assure me that it isn't as choppy as I feared given my stop and start writing the last 10 days._

_Okay, it's what you've all been waiting for. Jasper and Alice have some fun, and Rose gets her comeuppance. Oh, and Edward has this little inconsequential epiphany at the end of the chapter. Nothing important there. Trust me. (smirks) There's a **BIG** chunk of Midnight Sun in here. When SM still had Edward's voice with her, she wrote some truly moving Edward passages. This was one of them, and I couldn't bring myself to exclude it from this universe. So all respect to the lady who created this character! I tweaked it a bit. I altered his level of commitment, given the changed circumstances. Because of Kat, he's in deeper here than he was at this point in canon. Be prepared for further changes to come._

_So, read and enjoy. See if you can tell where SM stopped and I started._

_And please remember our brothers and sisters in Japan in your prayers.  
_

* * *

Jasper's POV

The trees were a blur as we raced across Olympic National Park, sometimes leaping from tree to tree and from ridge-top to ridge-top. It was dark out, but our night vision made it seem like it was only early twilight. However, we weren't pausing to enjoy the view. Our goal was to break into the open land east of Shelton, and run cross country south of Olympia to reach a spur of the Cascades south of Yelm and then on into Mt. Rainer National Park.

We could have taken one of the cars, as I had earlier in the day, but I wanted a nice ripe scent trail for our brother and sister to follow. Once Alice had seen Rose's intentions and the probable results of those intentions, she'd talked it over with me, and I'd ditched school to make some preparations. Nobody threatens my mate! Not even my sister. I was still a soldier at heart, and military toys have intrigued me ever since Maria changed me. I had some good ones. Mix those with a little down home redneck creativity and some annoying siblings, and you have an evening of genuine fun. Yes, I've watched the Blue-Collar Comedy Tour. It didn't hurt that Alice was kibitzing on the cell phone, telling what would and would not work.

Far behind us, I could catch the faint taste of familiar emotions. Rose's irritation was rising, and Emmett's competitive edge was aroused. He'd started out tonight just humoring Rose. Now though, with his predatory instincts awakened, he genuinely wanted to catch us. Good. That would make them both careless.

I smirked as I ran, and suppressed the desire to kiss my wife. That would come later. For now, the game was afoot. As vampires, we didn't often get the chance to make our quarry chase _us_. Now, if we could just let them get close enough…but not too close.

Rose's POV

Okay, I'm past being annoyed and into seriously pissed territory now. Alice is up to something and I know it. More to the point she knows that I know it; and I know that she knows that I know it. Yet she was making me chase her across half of Washington State, without even the excuse of a meal at the end of it. I could be at home, watching television, or giving my pretty red baby a tune-up, but no, Emmett and I are chasing my sneaky-ass little sister and her equally sneaky-ass husband through the Olympic National Forest trying to find out where the hell she goes at night. And why there's almost no scent on her when she comes home. Wherever she's going, she's taking care to bathe before coming home. That in itself is suspicious. She can walk in the house with Jasper, smelling like fresh sex, but nothing else? I don't believe it.

I started to follow her old trails earlier this evening only to find that someone, whose name is Mud…spelled J-a-s-p-e-r…set off a couple of homemade pepper spray bombs on their trail. The stench totally obliterated their scent, which meant I had no choice but to go straight for the horse's mouth. Emmett and I are now at least twenty minutes behind the demented Pixie and Mr. Mud. When we catch up to them, so help me, Alice is going to tell me what she and Edward are up to. If it has anything to do with the milquetoast human girl that Edward misguidedly saved, I swear I will chain Alice in a chair and make her watch as I burn her Manolos, one pair at a time. Then I'll turn Edward's beloved Aston Martin into fodder for soup cans.

We're catching up, slowly but surely. Then there will be a reckoning!

Bella's POV

Kat is finally in bed. For some reason she was very hard to get to settle down tonight. Even Emmett seemed to be wired. Thank God he was already housebroken. If he hadn't been able to sleep with Kat, neither of them ever would have settled down. I simply put it down to some especially energetic play. Truthfully, I hadn't been watching as closely tonight. I was starting to relax a bit, and I had a paper due the day after tomorrow; so I focused on homework and left Kat watch to Charlie.

Charlie and I had words after she went out to play. I'd been pissed all through supper, but I tamped it down for the sake of the united front that Charlie had mentioned the other day. Once Kat was out the door though, I rounded on him. It wasn't an actual fight. I never fought with my parents, either of them. It was simply a firm disagreement. My mind drifted back over that encounter….

"_Dad?"_

"_Yeah, Bells?"_

"_Can we talk a minute?" My voice must have betrayed me, because he sighed._

"_This is about Kat's shiner, isn't it?"_

_I nodded firmly. "I didn't like being surprised by that when I showed up to pick her up."_

"_Honey, we're learning as we go here, but you have to understand that if something happens, I get the call, not you. Just like Renee did in Phoenix. It didn't involve blood and broken bones, so I saw no need to interrupt your school day with it. What could you have done, Bells; leave school in the middle of the day to go and check on her? Honey, you have to learn to trust my judgment when it comes to Kat if we're going to make this arrangement work. I love you both, Bells, but you have to meet me halfway here." _

_I sighed. He was right, but I hated being left out of the loop. "How about this then? I know that if it's serious, you'll come for me or send for me," I said, just in case he had thoughts to the contrary. "Just promise that, if something like this happens again, I'll know about it before I pick her up from school? The sooner, the better."_

_He gave a grudging nod. "Alright, I'll text you, or have the dispatcher at the station text you if I get a call. But you have to promise me that unless I say so, you stay in class and don't go charging to Kat's rescue. You need some time to be a kid yourself yet."_

_I hesitated before nodding, and then giving him a hug to show that I wasn't mad anymore. (Actually I was still a little miffed, but I knew that I wasn't being fair.) Like I said before, we usually aren't very tactile with each other, but that was changing too. _

"_I love you, dad," I muttered into his shoulder._

"_I love you too, Bells."_

That was the last word and the closest thing that Charlie and I had ever had to an adult argument.

I saw his point when he implied that, in his quest to give me time to be a kid myself for the little bit of time that I had left in my teens, he was going to curtail the need for me to play the parent to Kat wherever he could. And I think that he got the fact that I disliked surprises on general principle, and when the surprise involved a black-eye on my sister's face, I skipped right past dislike and went right for pissed off.

In the end, I had to grant the fact that, Charlie is our father, and he isn't stupid either. Kat isn't my personal property, nor is she solely my responsibility. That would be a hard adjustment for me to make, because half the time I didn't trust my own mother when it came to Katrina's well-being. I sighed. Why did this part of growing up feel like I was going backward?

I was stretching as I walked up stairs to get ready for bed. I snagged my toiletry basket, and walked down the hall towards the bathroom. Before I took my shower, I peeked in at Kat and saw that she seemed to be sound asleep. Either that or she was better at playing possum than I had been at her age. Emmett raised his head and looked at me briefly before yawning and rolling over onto his side, against Kat's legs, and falling still.

Confident that she was settled for the night, I went about getting ready for bed myself.

Alice's POV

This was more fun than I'd had in a long time, playing the fox to Rosalie and Emmett's hounds. We made it into the Cascade foothills south of Seattle, and the real fun had begun. We were running down a foot trail between two ridges, headed for a cut where the ridges intersected when Jasper said, in a conversational tone, "when we get to the white rock, follow me and…" Shit! There was the white rock! "…JUMP!"

Jasper made a one-legged leap, graceful as a gazelle, and I followed suit. We both soared nearly 150 feet through a stand of fir trees surrounding the trail before we hit the ground, still running. I grinned, and then laughed aloud. I knew what Jasper had planned.

He glanced over at me as when continued to blur our way through the nighttime forest.

"Somethin' wrong, darlin'?" he drawled, with that damn sexy smirk of his.

"No, Jazz, nothing's wrong. I just now realized how boring our lives had gotten."

His grin broadened. "So, a little excitement is a good thing?"

I laughed aloud. "This isn't just a little excitement, Jazz. This is fun, with a purpose. We have fun, of a sort, as individuals, as couples, as a family, but this is something altogether different. This is joy, and nothing but!"

He snorted his own laugh. "Whatever makes you happy, Ali."

I nudged him as we ran, but not enough to knock him off balance. "Don't try to fake me out, Jasper Whitlock. This isn't all about me, and you know it! You're having fun too!"

"I don't deny it Darlin', now that we've let the dynamic duo get close enough for…" his words were cut off by a shrill ululation that could only have one source. Rosalie.

His smirk broadened. "Ah…there we go," he said, as we ran on, slowing slightly, in case the pursuit had. "Keep an eye on 'em, Darlin', just in case they give up. I wouldn't want all my preparation to go to waste."

I laughed merrily as we ran on.

Rosalie's POV

PAINT!

How juvenile can you get! When I get my hands on them, they'll need a gallon of superglue to put themselves back together! ARRGH!

We were closing the gap on them when the scent trail changed. It weakened for a moment as we passed through some fir trees, and all of a sudden we were covered in PAINT! Red, white, and blue paint bombs fell from the canopy and exploded virtually on top of us!

"YOU ARE A DEAD MAN, WHITLOCK! DO YOU HEAR ME?" I screamed into the night. "THAT GOES DOUBLE FOR YOU, TINKERBELL!"

Emmett approached me cautiously. Wise of him, considering the fact that looking at his paint-covered self reminded me of what I looked like just then! ARRRGH!

"Rosie, there was a motion sensor, back by that white rock."

"A motion sensor? Then why didn't some stinking deer or rabbit set it off?"

"Because it was set up in tandem with an infrared sensor," he answered. "Motion with body heat doesn't trip it; motion without body heat does. I didn't smell the paint until it actually hit us. He must have taken it up a tree on the other side of the grove, and gone from tree to tree with it when he set this up."

Just then there was an electronic hissing and the tinny sound on a band playing Dixie began to issue from 20 feet up a tree trunk to our right. I snarled and smashed the offending MP3 player with a well-aimed rock. The Cowboy had messed with the wrong woman tonight. I'd show him 'the land of cotton'. He'd be begging me for his own personal emancipation proclamation before this was done.

"Let's go," I snarled. "We have siblings to maim!"

"Rose that might not be the best…" his reply choked off when he caught the look I was giving him. I didn't use it often on my mate, but the death glare still worked.

We took off running, as if pursued by furies. Though, truth be told, we were the furies doing the pursuing.

Jasper's POV

As vampire speeds went, we were dawdling.

We were deep inside the Park now, near the foot of Pearl Falls on the flanks of Rainier itself. Alice and I had actually had to stop and get the laughter out of our systems when Rose's bellowed death threat had faintly reached our ears. But we didn't get much of a break though. It was hardly more than a few minutes before my mate's eyes glazed over and she said, 'they're coming', and we were off and running.

Now, as we ran through a narrow defile into another hollow, I made sure to break an aerial 'trip-wire' as we passed through. I'd run it above head height to keep any animals or humans from breaking it. That trap was now set. It was perfect. They'd never smell it coming.

Alice was giggling like a school girl. I was for damn sure getting lucky tonight!

Emmett's POV

Oh man, Rosie is pissed. I haven't seen her that mad since Alice first started making wardrobe suggestions…and being right about them. She's been muttering dire threats ever since the paint bombs. Whatever happens tonight, she's going to carry a grudge for a long time. She's my mate, and I love her above all things, but my sweetie can be the teensiest bit stubborn and vindictive. I think that following the Vampire Commando so closely might not be the brightest move, but some part of me doesn't give a crap. I want to beat the General so bad I can taste it. After that last stunt, I was paying close attention to their trail, looking for the slightest hint of difference that could warn me of another of Jasper's stunts. So, of course, there wasn't any break to warn us, like there was the last time, had we been watching for it. We were about to pass between two high rock walls when a muted 'pop" caused something about the size of a small coffee can to jump out of the ground in front of us, springing up to chest height.

My vampire reflexes allowed me to study the situation for a half a second. I'd heard about these. Trust Jasper to find or make a Bouncing Betty. We were going too fast to stop immediately, and there was no time to jump. Nothing in those things that could harm a human could do more than mess up our clothes, so this would just be annoying and noth…._it detonated_…OH SHIT!

Jasper's POV

The stentorian bellow that echoed through the Lower Cascades told me that my country boy brother recognized the payload on my little bon bon. A Bouncing Betty configured against humans wouldn't even slow one of us down. So I tinkered with this one a bit to make it especially annoying to people who have an acute sense of smell. Like vampires.

Butyl mercaptan. Distilled quintessence of skunk. It's amazing what you can get on a special order from a paint-ball manufacturer if you're willing to cough up sufficient cash. Like paintball ammunition loaded with a dilute solution of butyl mercaptan. I had to go through some third party buyers procured by J. Jenks in order to avoid attracting the attention that a civilian buyer of such things would, but I secured a supply which, along with a few other party favors, I kept secured far from the house. I'm not stupid. Should one of those paintballs accidentally break, we'd have to move out and burn the house down with everything in it to get rid of the stink. Esme would dismember me herself.

I'd gotten them in case we ever had unwelcome visitors that we couldn't handle barehanded, but as practical joke tools go, they aren't bad. Just evil.

My brother and sister would be pariahs for a while….unless….

"Jazz?"

"Yeah, Darlin'?"

"They've quit."

"Damn, I won't even get to use the tunnel-o-mud?" I lamented.

"I think they've had enough for one night. I honestly think that Rose is in shock. Emmett has vague human memories of what getting 'skunked' was like, but we avoided them like the plague, so Rose has never had the benefit of the education."

"Not like you have, Darlin'," I said, alluding to her initial forays into being an animal drinker, shortly after her first vision of Carlisle and his family when she woke up from her change. One of the few times that she'd ignored her visions…because the black and white kitty was pretty. I'd found it hilarious when she told me about it, shortly after we were first mated. What wasn't so hilarious was the 48 hours without sex that immediately followed. We made up for it later, as newly mated couples do, but it had still taken the wind out of my sails.

Alice growled. "Jazzy, have you forgotten what happened the last time this subject came up?"

"Nope," I responded.

"And yet, here you are, tempting fate," she answered back sweetly.

"Not so much, no," I said, with a grin. "For one thing, you need me as much as I need you, and for another, I was simply pointing out that you had practical experience that Rose lacked…until a couple of minutes ago that is."

Alice snickered as she looked back the way we'd come. "Shall we accept their surrender?"

I walked up behind her, wrapping her in my arms and nuzzling her ear. "If they'll give it," I murmured. "Rose isn't the forgiving type."

Alice shrugged. "They're both covered in paint, and smell like a week-long skunk convention. If they want the case of tomato juice that we thoughtfully acquired for them, and the clothes that I stashed for them, then they'll know when they're licked. They should thank their lucky stars that you used water soluble paint." She giggled. "As for forgiveness, I'll let someone else handle that," she finished cryptically.

I chuckled at my diminutive wife's confidence without questioning it. She wasn't the skunk-girl anymore. "Then let's go try to lead the horses to water, Darlin'," I said, though I was loath to give up cuddling my wife at the moment. "I have other plans tonight that I don't want to put off," I finished with a growl.

Alice turned in my arms and kissed me…thoroughly.

"What was that for?" I asked.

"Being you, my brilliant husband," she answered. "And to hold you until later. Let's go.

With that, she grabbed my hand and we took off down the trail at what was (for us) a leisurely trot. No need to hurry. Let the lesson have time to soak in…

Edward's POV

The hours after Bella had called Katrina in had been evenly divided between wallowing in my few memories of Bella, yearning to see her one more time before I left, and wrestling with the desire to do what I saw as the right thing by leaving at once with no further contact. I argued with myself right down to the final moments, as my remaining time in Forks trickled away, but my less noble side won the argument, and I went ahead with my indefensible plan. The monster was restless but well-fettered. I knew I would keep a safe distance from her. I only wanted to know where she was. I just wanted to see her face. And, I acknowledged, keep my word to her sister.

It was past midnight, and Bella's house was dark and quiet. Her truck was parked against the curb, her father's police cruiser in the driveway. There were no conscious thoughts anywhere in the neighborhood. I watched the house for a moment from the blackness of the forest that bordered it on the east. The front door would probably be locked—not a problem with Alice's key, except that the gentleman in me felt wrong about using the front door without invitation, as if I were an honest and welcome suitor for Bella's favors. If I was to be committing a criminal act and violating her privacy, then I should stay with means appropriate to the act.

I decided to try the upstairs window first. Not many people would bother installing a lock there. Or, if they do, they rarely lock it.

I crossed the open yard and scaled the face of the house in half a second.

Dangling from the eave above the window by one hand, I looked through the glass, and my breath stopped.

It was her room. I could see her in the one small bed, her covers on the floor and her sheets twisted around her legs. As I watched, she twitched restlessly and threw one arm over her head. She did not sleep soundly, at least not this night.

Did she sense the danger near her?

I was repulsed by myself as I watched her toss again. How was I any better than some sick peeping tom? I wasn't any better. I was much, much worse. I should leave…now.

I relaxed my fingertips, about to let myself drop. But first I allowed myself one long look at her face.

It was not peaceful. The little furrow was there between her eyebrows, the corners of her lips turned down. Her lips trembled, and then parted.

"Okay, Mom," she muttered.

Bella talked in her sleep.

Curiosity flared, overpowering self-disgust. The lure of those unprotected, unconsciously spoken thoughts was impossibly tempting.

I tried the window, and it was not locked, though it stuck due to long disuse. I slid it slowly aside, cringing at each faint groan of the metal frame. I would have to find some oil for next time…

Next time? I shook my head, disgusted again. My selfish side was reflexively planning to see her again, despite my decision to leave. I should leave now, but being this close to her, I couldn't make myself do the right thing. I could feel my resolve wavering and ruthlessly suppressed it. I couldn't afford the weakness I'd shown earlier today in Biology. What I was doing now was already bad enough.

I eased myself silently through the half-opened window.

The padding of small paws alerted me to the presence of the pup, so I had a dog treat out as he entered the room, before the first inquisitive whine. Part of me wondered why he hadn't barked, but I put it down to good fortune and the fact that he was used to our scent in the house, and our presence in the yard and the forest surrounding it. Alice really was a genius. I tossed him the treat, and he settled down to gnaw on it contentedly.

Her room was small—disorganized but not unclean. There were books piled on the floor beside her bed, their spines facing away from me, and CDs scattered by her inexpensive CD player—the one on top was just a clear jewel case. Stacks of papers surrounded a computer that looked like it belonged in a museum dedicated to obsolete technologies. Shoes dotted the wooden floor.

I wanted very much to go read the titles of her books and CDs, but I'd promised myself that I would keep my distance; instead, I went to sit the old rocking chair in the far corner of the room.

Had I really once thought her average-looking? I thought of that first day, and my disgust for the boys who were so immediately intrigued with her. But when I remembered her face in their minds now, I could not understand why I had not found her beautiful immediately. It seemed an obvious thing.

Right now—with her dark hair tangled and wild around her pale face, wearing a threadbare t-shirt full of holes with tatty sweatpants, her features relaxed in unconsciousness, her full lips slightly parted—she took my breath away.

Or would have, I thought wryly, if I were breathing.

She did not speak. Perhaps her dream had ended.

I stared at her face and tried to think of some way to make the future bearable.

Hurting her was not bearable. Clearly, my only choice was to try to leave again.

The others could not argue with me now. My absence would not put anyone in danger. There would be no suspicion, nothing to link anyone's thoughts back to the accident.

I wavered as I had on entering her room, as I had this afternoon, and nothing seemed possible.

I could not hope to rival the human boys who sought her favor, whether these specific boys appealed to her or not. I was a monster. How could she see me as anything else? If she knew the truth about me, it would frighten and repulse her. Like the intended victim in a horror movie, she would run away, shrieking in terror.

I remembered her first day in biology…and knew that this was exactly the right reaction for her to have.

It was foolishness to imagine that if had I been the one to ask her to the silly dance, she would have cancelled her hastily-made plans and agreed to go with me.

I was not the one she was destined to say yes to. It was someone else, someone human and warm. And I could not even let myself—someday, when that yes was said— hunt him down and kill him, because she deserved him, whoever he was. She deserved happiness and love with whomever she chose.

I gathered my battered fortitude. I owed it to her to do the right thing now; I had been right; I could no longer pretend that I was only in danger of loving this girl.

After all, it really didn't matter if I left, because Bella could never see me the way I wished she would. Never see me as someone worthy of love.

Never.

Could a dead, frozen heart break? It felt like mine would.

"Edward," Bella said.

I froze, staring at her unopened eyes.

Had she woken, caught me here? She looked asleep, yet her voice had been so clear…

She sighed a quiet sigh, and then moved restlessly again, rolling to her side—still fast asleep and dreaming.

"Edward," she mumbled softly.

She was dreaming of me.

Could a dead, frozen heart beat again? It felt like mine was about to.

"Stay," she sighed. "Don't go. Please…don't go."

She was dreaming of me, and it wasn't even a nightmare. She wanted me to stay with her, there in her dream.

I struggled to find words to name the feelings that flooded through me, but I had no words strong enough to hold them. For a long moment, I drowned in them.

When I surfaced, I was not the same man I had been.

My life was an unending, unchanging midnight. It must, by necessity, always be midnight for me. So how was it possible that the sun was rising now, in the middle of my midnight?

At the time that I had become a vampire, trading my soul and my mortality for immortality in the searing pain of transformation, I had truly been frozen. My body had turned into something more like rock than flesh, enduring and unchanging. My self, also, had frozen as it was—my personality, my likes and my dislikes, my moods and my desires; all were fixed in place.

It was the same for the rest of them. We were all frozen. Living stone.

When change came for one of us, it was a rare and permanent thing. I had seen it happen with Carlisle, and then a decade later with Rosalie. Love had changed them in an eternal way, a way that never faded. More than eighty years had passed since Carlisle had found Esme, and yet he still looked at her with the incredulous eyes of first love. It would always be that way for them.

It would always be that way for me, too. I would always love this fragile human girl, for the rest of my limitless existence.

I gazed at her unconscious face, feeling this love for her settle into every portion of my stone body.

She slept more peacefully now, a slight smile on her lips.

Always watching her, I began to plot.

I loved her, and so I would try to be strong enough to leave her. I knew I wasn't that strong now. I would work on that one. But perhaps I was strong enough to circumvent the future in another way.

Alice had seen only two futures for Bella, and now I understood them both.

Loving her would not keep me from killing her, if I let myself make mistakes.

Yet I could not feel the monster now, could not find him anywhere in me.

Perhaps love had silenced him forever. If I killed her now, it would not be intentional, only a horrible accident.

I would have to be inordinately careful. I would never, ever be able to let my guard down. I would have to control my every breath. I would have to keep an always cautious distance.

I would not make mistakes.

I finally understood that second future. I'd been baffled by that vision—what could possibly happen to result in Bella becoming a prisoner to this immortal half-life?

Now—devastated by longing for the girl—I could understand how I might, in unforgivable selfishness, ask my father for that favor. Ask him to take away her life and her soul so that I could keep her forever.

She deserved better.

But I saw one more future, one thin wire that I might be able to walk, if I could keep my balance.

Could I do it? Be with her and leave her human?

Deliberately, I took a deep breath, and then another, letting her scent rip through me like wildfire. The room was thick with her perfume; her fragrance was layered on every surface. My head swam, but I fought the spinning. I would have to get used to this, if I were going to attempt any kind of relationship with her. I took another deep, burning breath, then froze as I heard the sound of small feet, padding down the hall. I'd been so focused on Bella that I hadn't even heard her sister get out of bed.

Katrina appeared in the doorway, trailing a blanket from her bed, looking somnolent, her mind conscious only of her desire for the comfort of her sister's presence…until she saw me in the rocking chair. Without blinking she shuffled over to me and held up her arms, demanding my attention. I hesitated for perhaps half a second, feeling totally adrift, then I responded the only way that made sense to me, by tucking her blanket firmly about her slender body and lifting her into my lap, cradling her against my body as I began to rock; whereupon the little girl did something completely beyond my expectations.

She fell asleep.

This sweet child had abandoned caution in my arms, trusting me, _me_ of all the creatures that walk this earth, to care for her and protect her. I felt my already overburdened heart swell further, near to bursting. In some corner of my stunned mind, I wondered if this was the sort of epiphany that new fathers went through. Katrina Swan trusted me, completely and without reservation. I would burn before I violated that trust.

I rocked her as I watched both she and her sister sleeping until the sun rose behind the eastern clouds, plotting and breathing.

Before leaving I tucked Katrina into her sister's side. Without waking, Bella wrapped her body around her sister protectively. I gently covered them both with Bella's lost blankets, and backed toward the window, pausing as Bella stirred slightly, nuzzled her sister's brown locks, and took a deep breath. I froze, thinking that she'd awakened, but no, she still slept, as her breathy murmur came.

"Mmmm…Edward…butterfly."

The aching chasm in my chest was gone, only to be replaced by a different sort of ache. It was an ache to know this girl so completely that I would know what her every murmur, awake or sleeping meant. Even if I could never read her mind. I'd heard the human expression _'This is the first day of the rest of your life.'_ I'd always though it trite. I understood it better now, as I looked at the first day of whatever eternity I had left to me, sleeping quietly with Katrina in her arms; and knew that I would die before any harm ever came to either of them.

I slipped silently out the window and dropped to the ground. I streaked through the forest, headed for home, eager to start my day, knowing that I would see Bella again, only to run head on into my 'baby' sister's smug yet loving thought as I approached the house.

"_Told ya so, Edward. Told ya so."_

TBC

_AN2: Listen to the feedback button. It's saying "Feed me, Seymour! Feed me!"_


	18. Chapter 18

_AN1: Ho-o-oly Sh-i-it! My account has started working again! So I'm making hay while the sun shines! Sorry this chapter is such a cheat. This is me playing mix 'n match with SM's stuff from Twilight, Midnight Sun, and my own work. It was fun! This is sort of the peak on SM's involvement. It's down hill from here, until I finally wander too far away from canon for her work to even be relevant. The Meadow will probably be the last hurrah for that. In the mean time, here's chapter 18. Chapter 19 is in beta, and I'm writing chapter 20. Sorry I've been gone. It wasn't my fault...really it wasn't! (Prepares to duck rotten tomatoes.) Nods to SM for her borrowed material; and my unending praise and thanks to my betas, Im2xshy and jdficwriter._

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Bella's POV

I'm moving through my morning in a total daze. I'm still not sure what happened this morning when I arrived at school, but I think I have a date with Edward Cullen. Let's repeat that. A. Date. With the insanely cryptic, stupid shiny Volvo owner. At least I _think_ it's a date? Boy, did _this _day ever take a turn for the weird.

Come to think of it, it started out weird. I woke up late…with Kat in my bed. Something that hasn't happened in a couple of weeks and furthermore I couldn't remember when or how she got there. I don't _ever_ recall that happening. Kat couldn't tell me anything either, but I had the unmistakable feeling that she was somehow fibbing. And where did she come by perfume? Because I swear she had a trace of some on her this morning. I know it wasn't mine, because none of my handful of inexpensive knock-off perfumes or colognes smell _that_ good. Something from school yesterday? In my rush to get us both out the house, I didn't have time to interrogate her further. At least her shiner was already fading.

I dropped her at Forks Elementary and arrived at school slightly behind schedule, only to get ambushed at my truck by the man himself. After a few minutes of parry and thrust on both of our parts, he won his battle when he admitted that he was 'tired of trying to stay away from me', and while I was still groggy from that heart-imploding revelation, he leaned in and used those smoldering eyes of his to dazzle me into agreeing to a ride to Seattle with him the weekend of the dance.

That's a date, right? I mean, if staying away from me is that exhausting, then it has to be a date. The _really_ funny side of it is that I was waiting for him to crack, and now that he has I have no idea what I'm doing. Until I moved here, I might as well have been invisible to boys. Part of me wished that was still the way of things. My life certainly would have been less complicated.

Mike Newton gave me a wide berth in English, but both he and Eric were waiting at the door when the bell rang. Apparently, since I'd turned them both down for the dance, they'd declared some sort of temporary truce and returned to sharing the job of escorting me from class to class; while waiting for my resolve to weaken, no doubt. Mike seemed to become more himself as we walked, gaining enthusiasm as he talked about the weather report for this weekend. The rain was supposed to take a minor break, and so maybe his beach trip would be possible. I tried to sound eager, to make up for disappointing him yesterday.

It was hard; rain or no rain, it would still only be in the high forties, if we were lucky.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur. It was difficult to believe that I hadn't just imagined what Edward had said, and the way his eyes had looked. Maybe it was just a very convincing dream that I'd confused with reality. That seemed more probable than that I really appealed to him on any level.

So I was impatient and frightened as Jessica and I entered the cafeteria. I wanted to see his face, to see if he'd gone back to the cold, indifferent person I'd known for the last several weeks. Or if, by some miracle, I'd really heard what I thought I'd heard this morning. Jessica babbled on and on about her dance plans — Lauren and Angela had asked the other boys and they were all going together — completely unaware of my inattention.

Disappointment flooded through me as my eyes unerringly focused on his table. The other four were there, but he was absent.

Had he gone home? I followed the still-babbling Jessica through the line, crushed. I'd lost my appetite — I bought nothing but a bottle of lemonade. I just wanted to go sit down and sulk.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you again," Jessica said, finally breaking through my abstraction with his name. "I wonder why he's sitting alone today."

My head snapped up. I followed her gaze to see Edward, smiling crookedly, staring at me from an empty table across the cafeteria from where he usually sat. Once he'd caught my eye, he raised one hand and motioned with his index finger for me to join him. As I stared in disbelief, he winked.

"Does he mean you?" Jessica asked with insulting astonishment in her voice.

"Maybe he needs help with his Biology homework," I muttered for her benefit. "Um, I'd better go see what he wants."

Edward's POV

_"Um, I'd better go see what he wants."_

"_Excellent idea, my dear,"_ I thought, even as I stumbled internally over the endearment. I was putting the cart before the horse. But I was still elated. She was saying yes again. To me.

She stumbled twice on her way to my table, though there was nothing in her way but perfectly even linoleum. Seriously, how _had_ I missed this before?

I'd been paying more attention to her silent thoughts, I supposed… What else had I missed?

"_Keep it honest, keep it light,"_ I chanted to myself.

She stopped behind the chair across from me, hesitating. I inhaled deeply, through my nose this time rather than my mouth.

"_Feel the burn,"_ I thought dryly.

"Why don't you sit with me today?" I asked her.

She pulled the chair out and sat, staring at me the whole while. She seemed nervous, but her physical acceptance was yet another yes.

I waited for her to speak.

It took a moment, but, finally, she said, "This is different."

"Well…" I hesitated. "I decided as long as I was going to hell, I might as well do it thoroughly."

Bella's POV

I blinked. Okay, that wasn't quite the opening I was expecting.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I told you — I got tired of trying to stay away from you. So I'm giving up." He was still smiling, but his ocher eyes were serious.

"Giving up?" I repeated in confusion.

"Yes — giving up trying to be good. I'm just going to do what I want now, and let the chips fall where they may." His smile faded as he explained, and a hard edge crept into his voice.

I must have looked uncertain because he looked at me seriously. "It's not too late, you know. You can get up now and go back to your friends. It would be better, safer for you, if you did…and you'd probably make Mike Newton's whole day."

The mention of Mike's name made me frown, but I refused to be distracted. I was too focused on his apparent belief that talking to me was somehow wrong, wrong to a degree that made him think that it he was worthy of eternal damnation. No matter how self-assured he liked to appear, those were some serious self-esteem issues.

I shook my head. I was already in too deep and getting in deeper, but I sensed that was the wrong thing to tell him when he was still so skittish about even talking to me at all. I simply needed to find out what was feeding his concern, while at the same time hanging onto the gains we were making.

"Can you do me a favor?" I asked after a second of hesitation.

He was suddenly wary. "That depends on what you want."

"It's not much," I assured him.

He waited, guarded but curious.

"I just wondered… if you could warn me beforehand the next time you decide to ignore me for my own good. Just so I'm prepared." I looked at the lemonade bottle as I spoke, tracing the circle of the opening with my pinkie finger.

"That sounds fair." He was pressing his lips together to keep from laughing when I looked up.

"Thanks."

"Then can I have a favor in return?" he demanded.

"One."

"Tell me what you're thinking?"

I blinked again. In my life, the only person ever to show concern for what was going on in my head was my mother…and that was because she usually knew already. She didn't call me her 'open book' for nothing. Why would he…

I looked up into his deep gold eyes, became befuddled again, and, as usual, blurted out the truth.

"I'm trying to figure out what you are."

His jaw tightened, but he kept his smile in place with some effort.

"Are you having any luck with that?" he asked in an offhand tone.

"Not too much," I admitted.

He chuckled. "What are your theories?"

I blushed. I had been vacillating during the last month between Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker.

There was no way I was going to own up to that.

"Won't you tell me?" he asked, tilting his head to one side with a shockingly tempting smile.

I shook my head. "Too embarrassing."

"That's really frustrating, you know," he complained.

"No," I disagreed quickly, my eyes narrowing, "I can't imagine why that would be frustrating at all — just because someone refuses to tell you what they're thinking, even if all the while they're making cryptic little remarks specifically designed to keep you up at night wondering what they could possibly mean… now, why would that be frustrating?"

He grimaced.

"Or better," I continued, the pent-up annoyance flowing freely now, "say that person also did a wide range of bizarre things — from saving your life under impossible circumstances one day to treating you like a pariah the next, and he never explained any of that, either, even after he promised. That, also, would be very non-frustrating."

"You've got a bit of a temper, don't you?"

"To quote my late grandma, 'Sonny, you ain't seen nothin' yet.'"

Edward's POV

We stared at each other for a long moment, our smiles fled. Stand-off.

Then she got this quizzical expression. "I just thought of something."

"What would that be?"

"I can't go to Seattle with you unless I find a babysitter for my sister. I don't know anyone in this town well enough to feel good about asking them, and I'd like to keep this off of my father's radar if at all possible, so I don't want to ask him to watch Kat, no matter how much he'd love to. I don't want to hear his lecture about the evils of boys."

Across the cafeteria, Alice's mind lit up like Times Square.

"_Please Edward? Pretty please? I promise, you won't be sorry! Please!"_

I sighed. I could say yes now, or face the pout from hell later.

"Bella, I think my sister Alice might be convinced to volunteer as babysitter."

Bella glanced across at my family's table where my siblings were doing their usual 'indifferent to the entire world' impression. Nothing could be further from the truth. Rose was seething with fury and resentment. Emmett was alternating between worry and confusion. Jasper was practically bursting with pride, when he wasn't engaged in keeping the others from affecting him. And little Alice was nearly having a seizure with joy.

She studied me for a long moment. "You know, my father really likes your family, so I guess we could construe that as pre-approval." Then she held up a finger. _"But,_ I want to talk to her beforehand."

Had Alice been capable of it, she would have fainted on the spot. _"Tell her YES!" _I winced internally. If that squeal been audible, the cafeteria would have lost all of its windows and glassware.

"I think that can be arranged." I paused. "But I want a favor in exchange."

"_Edward! What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to talk yourself out of a date? If you blow my day with Kat, what I'll do to you will make what I did to Rose look like a walk in the park!"_

She raised her eyebrow. God, she even made _that_ look beautiful! "You want me to give you something in exchange for providing me a babysitter so _you_ can drive me to Seattle?"

I shrugged. "You'd need a babysitter, with or without me."

She laughed. "No, I'd just take her with me, but okay, I'll let you have your favor. What is it?"

"Tell me one theory."

She flushed. "Not that one."

"You didn't qualify, you just promised one favor. The favor I want is to hear just one theory," I argued.

"And you've broken promises yourself," she argued back.

She had me there.

"Just one theory—I won't laugh."

"Yes, you will." She seemed very sure of that, though I couldn't imagine anything that would be funny about it.

I gave persuasion another try. I stared deep into her eyes—an easy thing to do, with eyes so deep—and whispered, "Please?"

She blinked, and her face went blank.

Well, that wasn't exactly the reaction I'd been going for.

"Er, what?" she asked. She looked dizzy. What was wrong with her?

But I wasn't giving up yet.

"Please tell me just one little theory," I pleaded in my soft, non-scary voice, holding her eyes in mine.

To my surprise and satisfaction, it finally worked.

"Um, well, bitten by a radioactive spider?"

Bella's POV

Holy crow, how did he do that? He hits me with the eyes and I make with the verbal vomit. Was he a hypnotist, too? Or was I just a hopeless pushover?

"That's not very creative," he scoffed.

"I'm sorry, that's all I've got," I said, miffed.

"You're not even close," he teased.

"No spiders?"

"Nope."

"And no radioactivity?"

"None."

"Dang," I sighed.

"Kryptonite doesn't bother me, either," he chuckled.

"You're not supposed to laugh, remember?"

He struggled to compose his face.

"I'll figure it out eventually," I warned him.

"I wish you wouldn't try." He was serious again.

"Because… ?"

"What if I'm not a superhero? What if I'm the bad guy?" He smiled playfully, but his eyes were impenetrable.

"Oh," I said, as several things he'd hinted fell suddenly into place. "I see."

"Do you?" His face was abruptly severe, as if he were afraid that he'd accidentally said too much.

"You're dangerous?" I guessed, my pulse quickening as I intuitively realized the truth of my own words.

He was dangerous. He'd been trying to tell me that all along.

He just looked at me, eyes full of some emotion I couldn't comprehend.

"But not bad," I whispered, shaking my head. "No, I don't believe that you're bad."

"You're wrong." His voice was almost inaudible. He looked down, stealing my bottle lid and then spinning it on its side between his fingers.

"No, I'm not," I said firmly. I finally understood why he felt he was in the wrong just being around me. He was trying to protect me…from himself; the idiot.

"You can't know that," he said sharply.

"Oh yes, I can.

"How?"

I snorted. "In case you missed it my baby sister has this little talent, and her innocence enhances her honesty about it. She knows good people from bad people, and she says that you're good. My mother and I both trust her jerk-radar implicitly. The only reason that my step-dad Phil got a second date with my mom was because Kat liked him. And she _likes_ you."

Edward's POV

Across the cafeteria, Bella's little revelation had an electrifying effect on my family. Alice was gloating now, and her _'I told you so'_ was on looped playback. It was getting annoying. Emmett and Jasper were both curious, though for different reasons, but with the same end result. They both wanted to see what Katrina's gift said about them. But Rose was a perfect storm of mixed emotions. As much as she hated what I was doing now and who I was doing it with, she wanted to meet that child; yet she was terrified of doing so, because some part of her was certain the Katrina would reject her; that a monster like her was undeserving.

Huh, like I was certain that Bella would reject me if she knew what I was. In my life, I never expected to have so much in common with my self-absorbed younger sister. Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. Out of the whole family, Rose and I are the ones who struggle the most with this existence. Were our outward reasons really that superficial?

I vouchsafed Bella a slight smile. "And you take her word on these things?" I asked.

"Absolutely," she said, with a degree certainty that I found hard to believe.

"And if I don't?" I replied.

She shrugged. "Then that's a problem for you to solve, not me." She smirked at me. "There's an easy way out of this for you. Just summon your resolve and leave me alone."

"_As if,"_ came Alice's mental barb. _"That's the __last__ thing she wants, I promise you. You aren't the only one who'll feel my wrath if you screw this up,"_ she finished with a mental growl.

I contemplated the complex absurdity of the situation. My wanting to be with her, her plainly wanting to be with me despite some unnamed danger, me trying to leave her alone and failing, and this saucy human girl daring to apply reverse psychology to me, to me of all people, by encouraging me in my sure to fail efforts to stay away from her.

I sighed with resignation as I regarded her expectant smirk._ "Believe me,"_ I wanted to say. _"I've tried."_

"_Oh, and also, I'm wretchedly in love with you."_

Suddenly she jumped to her feet. "We're going to be late," she said, just as I'd started to worry that she'd somehow heard my silent warning. But no, she'd simply noticed that the cafeteria was nearly empty.

"I'm not going to class."

"Why not?"

_Because I don't want to kill you._

"It's healthy to ditch class now and then."

Bella's POV

I should have listened to him. Who knew that our biology teacher was apparently a Red Cross Booster who would work his own students for new blood donors? As soon as the scent of blood hit my nose, I was a goner. It would have served him right if I'd barfed in the middle of class. Which leads to how I came to be lying here on a cold sidewalk, halfway between class and the nurse's office, with Mike the blood-donor dithering over me. I wish he'd just go away and let me die. This day couldn't possibly get any worse.

Of course, I was wrong.

"Bella?" a voice called from the distance.

No! Please let me be imagining that horribly familiar voice.

"What's wrong — is she hurt?" His voice was closer now, and he sounded upset. I wasn't imagining it. I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping to die. Or, at the very least, not to throw up.

Mike seemed stressed.

"I think she's fainted. I don't know what happened, she didn't even stick her finger."

"Bella." Edward's voice was right beside me, relieved now.

"Can you hear me?"

"No," I groaned. "Go away."

He chuckled.

"I was taking her to the nurse," Mike explained in a defensive tone, "but she wouldn't go any farther."

"I'll take her," Edward said. I could hear the smile still in his voice. "You can go back to class."

"No," Mike protested. "I'm supposed to do it."

Suddenly the sidewalk disappeared from beneath me. My eyes flew open in shock. Edward had scooped me up in his arms, as easily as if I weighed ten pounds instead of a hundred and ten.

"Put me down!" Please, please let me not vomit on him.

He was walking before I was finished talking.

"Hey!" Mike called, already ten paces behind us.

Edward ignored him. "You look awful," he told me, grinning.

"Put me back on the sidewalk," I moaned. The rocking movement of his walk was not helping. He held me away from his body, gingerly, supporting all my weight with just his arms — it didn't seem to bother him. But then why should it?

"So you faint at the sight of blood?" he asked. This seemed to entertain him.

I didn't answer. I closed my eyes again and fought the nausea with all my strength, clamping my lips together.

"And not even your own blood," he continued, enjoying himself.

I firmly ignored him until he placed me, very gently mind you, on the battered cot in the nurse's office, and politely employed some sort of verbal kung fu to avoid being dismissed back to class.

"You were right," I moaned, letting my eyes close.

"I usually am — but about what in particular this time?"

"Ditching is healthy." I practiced breathing evenly. It's not enough that he was right? He has to be smug about it? And how did he know to avoid class to begin with? Jerk.

I didn't have much more time to work on my mad, because right then Mike showed up with another comatose blood-donor, and the salty metallic stench of fresh blood tainted the air in the room.

Edward was totally bewildered when I obeyed his command to flee to the office, even though he was right behind me. He didn't look ill, but apparently the smell bothered him every bit as much as it did me….though he didn't believe me when I told him as much.

I filed away his statement that 'People can't smell blood.' for later consideration. Because he obviously could, and didn't believe me when I made the same claim; which implies to me that he classes _himself_ as something _other_ than 'people'. Hmmmm…

"_Curiouser and curiouser," _I thought, smirking to myself. _"Sooner or later, Edward Cullen…."_

Edward's POV

She's doing the damn Mona Lisa smile again. What'd I do _this_ time? I didn't have time to consider it because that oaf Newton chose that moment to emerge from the nurse's office.

"You look better," he said, looking at Bella reproachfully, his anger at my presence making him rude.

My hand twitched, wanting to teach him some manners. I would have to watch myself, or I would end up actually killing this obnoxious boy.

"Just keep your hand in your pocket," she said. For one wild second, I thought she was talking to me.

"It's not bleeding anymore," he answered sullenly. "Are you going back to class?"

"Are you kidding? I'd just have to turn around and come back."

That was very good. I'd thought I was going to have to miss this whole hour with her, and now I got extra time instead. I felt greedy, a miser hording over each minute.

"Yeah, I guess…" Mike mumbled. "So are you going this weekend? To the beach?"

Ah, they had plans. Anger froze me in place. It was a group trip, though. I'd seen some of this in other students' heads. It wasn't just the two of them. I was still furious. I leaned motionlessly against the counter, trying to control myself.

"Sure, I said I was in," she promised him.

So she'd said yes to him, too.

The jealousy burned, more painful than thirst.

No, it was just a group outing, I tried to convince myself. She was just spending the day with friends. Nothing more.

"We're meeting at my dad's store, at ten." _And Cullen's NOT invited._

We'll see about that! I snarled internally at the necessity of letting the boy get territorial with me over something that didn't belong to him. My inner vampire growled, _"MINE!"_

Young Michael apparently wasn't as stupid as he acted, because he picked up on my momentary desire to snap his neck and retreated back to class, trailing uncomplimentary thoughts about my family behind him as he went.

I was building on my victory by employing some verbal cajolery with Ms. Cope to get Bella out of gym class, an hour of her school day which she apparently regards with active horror. With her ability to trip over thin air, I can see why.

I was still comparing Shelly Cope's reaction to my intentional flirting to Bella's very similar reaction. The difference being that I could read Ms. Cope's mind. I knew the flash of desire that I generated in her. Could I possibly be causing the same reaction in Bella? Could Bella's behavior and words be backed by feelings? Part of me hoped against hope that it was so, while another part hated that hope for what it was. Bella's eventual doom.

I sighed as I maneuvered her toward the parking lot, pausing to admire her flawless beauty as she let the fine mist that was falling bathe her perfect skin…whereupon we had our first major rift of the day when she headed for that junkyard on wheels of hers.

Bella's POV

He was being a jerk again! I'm going to break him of that habit if it's the last thing I do.

We were near the parking lot now. I veered left, toward my truck. Something caught my jacket, yanking me back.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, outraged. He was gripping a fistful of my jacket in one hand.

I was confused. "I'm going home."

"Didn't you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I'm going to let you drive in your condition?" His voice was still indignant.

"What condition? And what about my truck?" I complained.

"I'll have Alice drop it off after school." He was towing me toward his car now, pulling me by my jacket.

It was all I could do to keep from falling backward. He'd probably just drag me along anyway if I did.

"Let go!" I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideways across the wet sidewalk until we reached the Volvo. Then he finally freed me — I stumbled against the passenger door.

"You are so pushy!" I grumbled.

"It's open," was all he responded. He got in the driver's side.

"I am perfectly capable of driving myself home!" I stood by the car, fuming. It was raining harder now, and I'd never put my hood up, so my hair was dripping down my back.

He lowered the automatic window and leaned toward me across the seat. "Get in, Bella."

I didn't answer. I was mentally calculating my chances of reaching the truck before he could catch me.

I had to admit, they weren't good.

"I'll just drag you back," he threatened, guessing my plan.

I tried to maintain what dignity I could as I got into his car. I wasn't very successful — I looked like a half-drowned cat and my boots squeaked.

"You know," I growled. "This isn't going to work. I need my truck to pick my sister up from school."

"You're in no shape to drive. I told you that Alice would drop it off."

"After school, bucko. The missing key phrase there is after school. By the time your sister drops off my truck, and I get over to the elementary school, my sister will have been standing outside waiting for me for quite awhile." I glared at him. "That is _not_ going to happen."

He was smiling at something over my shoulder when a tap on the passenger window made me jump right out of my skin. I turned around to find his spiky haired sister smiling down at me through the glass. Before I could even think to look for the window controls, the glass slid down. He and I were going to have a discussion about those controlling tendencies of his…before our date.

His sister held out her hand. "Keys, please?" she said.

"Umm, how did you know…."

She smiled widely. "I'm a doctor's daughter. I guessed. I was going to the restroom when I saw Galahad there," she waved at her brother, "deliver you to the school nurse. So Jazz and I," she waved at her boyfriend behind her, "ditched last period to see if you needed help. We'll follow you to the house, and I'll drive you over to pick up your sister."

"You don't need to…"

She cut me off. "Phooey. It's no trouble at all. Edward told me between classes that you wanted me to interview for the babysitting gig. This is a perfect opportunity."

It was hard to get past her enthusiasm. It was charming and scary at the same time. So I simply gave in and surrendered my keys.

"Great!" she squealed. "See ya at the house!"

The window slid up as Edward started the engine and backed out smoothly.

"Is she a good driver?" I asked, with a note of worry.

He chuckled. "Nearly as good as me, and I'm the best in the family."

His stereo began to play soft music and I recognized the piece.

"Clair de Lune?" I asked, surprised.

"You know Debussy?" He sounded surprised, too.

"Not well," I admitted. "My mother plays a lot of classical music around the house — I only know my favorites."

"It's one of my favorites, too." He stared out through the rain, lost in thought.

I listened to the music, relaxing against the light gray leather seat. It was impossible not to respond to the familiar, soothing melody. The rain blurred everything outside the window into gray and green smudges. I began to realize we were driving very fast; the car moved so steadily, so evenly, though, I didn't feel the speed. Only the town flashing by gave it away.

It occurred to me that my old truck couldn't possibly keep up with this car, the way that Edward was driving. How would his sister find my house? Before I could ask though, he spoke.

"What is your mother like?" he asked me suddenly.

I glanced over to see him studying me with curious eyes.

"She looks a lot like me, but she's prettier," I said. He raised his eyebrows.

"I have too much Charlie in me. She's more outgoing than I am, and braver.

She's irresponsible and slightly eccentric, and she's a very unpredictable cook. She's my best friend." I stopped. Talking about her was making me depressed.

"How old are you, Bella?" His voice sounded frustrated for some reason I couldn't imagine. He'd stopped the car, and I realized we were at Charlie's house already. The rain was so heavy that I could barely see the house at all. It was like the car was submerged under a river.

"I'm seventeen," I responded, a little confused.

"You don't seem seventeen."

His tone was reproachful; it made me laugh.

"What?" he asked, curious again.

"My mom always says I was born thirty-five years old and that I get more middle-aged every year." I laughed, and then sighed. "Well, someone has to be the adult." I paused for a second. "You don't seem much like a junior in high school yourself," I noted.

He made a face and changed the subject.

"So why did your mother marry Phil?"

I was surprised he would remember the name; I'd mentioned it just once, almost two months ago. It took me a moment to answer.

"My mother… she's very young for her age. I think Phil makes her feel even younger. At any rate, she's crazy about him." I shook my head. The attraction was a mystery to me. But I couldn't argue with her choice. A lot of men would have cut and run after the accident, but Phil hadn't. He was standing by her through every grueling step of her recovery.

"Do you approve?" he asked.

"Does it matter?" I countered. "I want her to be happy… and he is who she wants."

"That's very generous… I wonder," he mused.

"What?"

"Would she extend the same courtesy to you, do you think? No matter who your choice was?" He was suddenly intent, his eyes searching mine.

"I-I think so," I stuttered. "But she's the parent, after all. It's a little bit different."

"No one too scary then," he teased.

I grinned in response. "What do you mean by scary? Multiple facial piercings and extensive tattoos?"

"That's one definition, I suppose."

"What's your definition?"

But he ignored my question and asked me another. "Do you think that I could be scary?" He raised one eyebrow, and the faint trace of a smile lightened his face.

I thought for a moment, wondering whether the truth or a lie would go over better. I decided to go with the truth. "Hmmm… I think you could be, if you wanted to."

"Are you frightened of me now?" The smile vanished, and his heavenly face was suddenly serious.

I smiled. "Still trying to scare me off?"

He shrugged. "Is it working?"

"No, so why don't we focus on something else?" I inhaled deeply and frowned, but before I could continue, I heard the roar of my truck as it pulled in next to us. By now it was really pouring, so I jerked in surprise when my door opened and I found Edward's brother standing there with an umbrella, waiting for me. I gave Edward a hasty goodbye and scrambled out of my seat. He escorted me over to the passenger side of my truck and let me get in before wordlessly collapsing the umbrella, handing it to me, and dashing back to Edward's car. In this day of small miracles, I shouldn't have been surprised that Alice had the book bag I'd abandoned in Biology.

She looked over at me with a bright smile. "Ready to go?

I nodded uncertainly, feeling like I'd missed something in the rush. "Sure?"

Alice threw the truck smoothly into gear and backed us out. Edward was right, she's a good driver. Edward waited for us to get clear before he backed out as Alice waited in the street for him. Even though the rain partially obscured his car, my eyes didn't leave it. I was disappointed when I didn't catch another glimpse before the Volvo was out of sight.

Edward's POV

I'd frozen at Alice's shrill warning thought as she pulled into Bella's driveway. Things had happened too fast after that for her to spare me another thought…until we were about to part ways.

The last thing I heard as I drove away was, _"Saved your butt again, Romeo. She was about two seconds from asking you why her sister's hair smelled like your cologne this morning."_

I sighed. I'd be lucky if Bella was even talking to me before this was over.

TBC

_AN2: The feedback button has been so-o-o lo-onely lately. Click on it and make it all better._


	19. Chapter 19

_AN1: I'd planned to post this on Friday in an effort to get back on some kind of schedule. Between my mother's medical issues, work issues, and the unreliability of the service around here my hoped for orderly posting schedule was stillborn. And real life promises to well and truly kick my ass this week too, so I'm throwing this out ahead of schedule. I hope it makes sense. There's much less vintage Meyer, and what there is, is outside of canon context. ;-) Nods to SM for swiping some of her stuff, and, as always, a big thank you to my betas Im2xshy and jdficwriter. Edward and Bella are finally seeing the inevitable, and I'm expanding the roles of Rose and Esme. Enjoy._

* * *

Alice's POV

It was a pain in the butt driving at human speeds, though this wreck couldn't manage much better than that. Rose needed to get her hands on this thing, ASAP. Speed notwithstanding, we pulled up to the elementary school in plenty of time for Bella and I to have our interview. The rain was still coming down in sheets, so it made it seem like we were in our own little world.

I stared across the length of the cab at the human girl who sat there regarding me with frank curiosity. Usually, at this range, the hair on the back of a human's neck would be standing on end. I'd seen it often enough on students sitting in front of me in this or that class. Like all prey animals, humans knew when the predators were about. But this girl apparently hadn't gotten the memo. It isn't like she had her sister's talent. She didn't know that I wouldn't harm her, she simply had faith that I wouldn't. I wondered how much of that is due to spillover from her bond with Edward.

I love my brother dearly, but sometimes he gets so wrapped up in what he perceives to be right and wrong that he can't see the forest for the trees. Idiot boy knows that he's in love with Isabella Swan, but he hasn't made the connection and realized yet that he's found his mate. He will though, and soon. I just hope to get Bella to that finish line before he crosses it, so she can rein him in if he starts to go off the reservation. She'll be good at that. She's what he's needed for the last 90 years.

So far Jazz and I are the only ones in our family who know. I've seen it, and he can feel it. Esme suspects, but Carlisle, Rose, and Emmett are clueless. I'd like to keep it that way for a bit longer. Edward and Bella deserve to find their way to each other without interference.

Me?

I'm not interfering; I'm meddling, like any good yenta does.

All of this introspective nonsense took the space of seconds. My future best friend and sister was still waiting. So, where to begin….

Before I could say anything intelligent, she preempted me.

"Um…hi?"

I grinned. "Hi, I'm Alice."

Bella's POV

I'll say this, her grin was infectious. I found myself grinning back, just to keep up with her.

"So, you want to babysit my sister for me? Where exactly; my house or yours? If it's yours, I'm going to want to meet your parents, as well as the rest of the family."

"I'm sure that can be arranged," Alice replied with a slight giggle. "They'll adore Kat."

"How did you know her name?"

Alice grinned. "The gossip telegraph at school is very effective. I sometimes think of it as 'lip radio'. I keep my ears open."

I sighed. "Are they _still_ talking about us? Gossiping about me was one thing. Spreading crap about my baby sister was over the line."

She shook her head. "Not so much anymore. Not since Todd Sanders and Cathy McKinney did the deed. Todd has a big mouth, which pretty much makes it certain that he won't be getting anything more from Cathy for awhile. "

I snorted. "You listen to that stuff?" I was wondering if Alice would be a good influence on my sister.

She answered me with a shrug. "I gather it; I don't spread it unless it's necessary. In high school, gossip can be like currency. You trade something harmless that you know, for something that you really need to know. I find it useful, not entertaining," she finished firmly.

I couldn't help it as my eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Alice didn't sound like a high school girl. She sounded like an experienced master spy from an Ian Fleming novel, bent on gathering intelligence. I didn't read them much these days, but when I was 10 years old, I so wanted to meet James Bond. So she was gathering intelligence. On what?

On me?

"Learn anything interesting?" I asked, in what I'm sure was a cranky tone.

She grinned. "Always. We'll talk about that later. Now though," she picked up the umbrella and handed it to me, "the bell is going to ring in about 10 seconds. If you don't want Kat soaked to the skin running to the truck, you'd better get out there."

Kat's POV

It was really raining hard when school was over. Really hard. I had on my raincoat that Sissy bought me, but I still didn't want to go out there. That's why I was so happy when Sissy came for me with an umbrella. She took my Dora bag and held it up under the umbrella, so it wouldn't get wet.

As we walked back to the truck, Sissy said, "I have a surprise for you Kitty Kat. I brought a friend with me to pick you up."

"Who?"

"A girl from school. I got a little sick at school, so she's driving my truck."

"Are you okay?" I was scared. Mommy got sick and hadn't gotten better yet. I didn't like it when Sissy was sick.

"I'm fine, honey. Nothing to worry about. And here we are."

We were at the truck. Sissy opened the door, put away the umbrella, and boosted me inside.

It was Alice!

I started to squeal, but she shushed me as Sissy climbed in the truck and I remembered that Alice was my secret, like Eddie Cullen was now.

So I smiled and let Alice put me in my booster seat.

Sissy did her seatbelt and Alice turned on the truck.

"Kat, this is my new friend Alice," Sissy said.

Alice said hi, and I got the giggles. I couldn't help it.

Now Sissy's looking at me funny, which just makes me giggle more.

Bella's POV

Okay, I wasn't expecting that reaction, but pending Kat's verbal approval, I'd say that puts Alice in the 'nice' column.

Alice got us back to the house in record time, and she played pack mule for all of us as I held the umbrella until we made it to the door. Once we were inside, my obviously crazy little sister grabbed her school stuff and broke for the upstairs.

"God, I'm sorry! I just realized. Alice, how are you getting home?"

She shrugged and waved a cell phone. "I'll call, and someone will come for me."

I paused for a moment, considering. "Alice?"

"Yes?"

"If I asked Edward to go on the beach trip with me Saturday, do you think he'd say yes?"

"Are you talking about that trip down to La Push that Newton put together?"

I nodded in reply.

Alice had the strangest look on her face; almost wistful. She shook her head. "Edward and Emmett are leaving tonight for the weekend, but even if he wasn't, our family isn't welcome on the Rez."

I stared at her. "For God's sake, why not?" Charlie's rant about people bad-mouthing the Cullens came back to me. "Does your family have a problem with the tribe?"

She sighed. "Not as such. We live and let live, but they have a problem with us. It goes back a long, long ways, Bella. Rather than argue it, we just stay off their land and leave them alone."

"What's their problem?"

Alice studied me for a long moment. "I'd love to tell you, but I think that my brother might kill me," she murmured.

What?

Alice's POV

"Is being cryptic a part of your family's genetic make-up?" Bella asked, looking frustrated. "No, forget I asked that, you're all adopted. Sorry."

I sighed. "This isn't going to put a crimp in my employment in the field of childcare, is it?" I asked with a perfectly straight face.

Bella stared at me for a long moment and then burst out laughing, and shook her head. "No Alice, it won't put a crimp in your babysitting gig; provided you tell me one thing about that mess with the Quileutes."

She waited expectantly. "What one thing?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know," she replied. "You pick."

Right then, I knew that my interview was underway. When I looked at the immediate future, I got zip. She must be making her choices completely on the fly, which gave me no warning at all. She couldn't possibly know about my talent, but she was so skilled at messing with it that I could only cringe at what the future held when she _did_ know. I could only hope that she'd be too fond of me by then to do something like that to me. I thought about it for a long moment and then snorted. It was perfect. "The one thing I can tell you about the Quileutes' attitude is that Edward agrees with them."

Bella blinked. "Oka-a-ay," she drawled thoughtfully. "That goes with the whole 'I'm dangerous and you should stay away from me' thing that he's trying to pull off?" She gave me a calculating look, "So, why does he agree with them?"

I shrugged back at her. "I don't know if you've noticed or not, but my brother is a bit of a masochist."

A snort of laughter forced its way out of her clamped lips. "Is that all?"

"I also refer you back to him killing me."

Her eyes were deadly serious as she studied me. This time I saw it coming, and I was ready.

"Edward would like me to believe that he's dangerous. Are you dangerous, Alice?"

I smiled. "Not to you, Bella, I swear. And not to Kat. If anything, I'm _exactly_ the babysitter you want."

She studied me silently for so long that I was beginning to wonder if she didn't have a touch of Kat's ability after all, but before she could say anything more, Kat came charging down the stairs.

"Sissy, can Alice play with me?"

Bella blinked. "Do you want her to, Kitty Kat?"

To her credit, Kat suddenly looked bashful. "Yes."

Bella glanced at me, and then back at Kat. "Mean, or nice?"

Kat sidled up to me and wrapped one arm around one of my legs. "Oh, nice. Really, really nice!"

Bella sighed, and then looked at me and smiled. "If you plan on taking her to your house, I still want to meet your parents."

Apparently the interview was over. I passed.

Bella's POV

It had been a hell of a day. Of course, the school had contacted Charlie, who had called me in full panic while Alice was upstairs playing 'dress up' with Kat. He'd been filling in for a desk sergeant who was out sick, and planning to work late, but he was ready to blow it off and come home if we needed him. I really and truly loved my father for his concern. I didn't know how he was going to handle it when he only had me for a year and suddenly _'POOF'_, I'd be a woman. So I resolved again to let him play daddy all he wanted. Just not tonight. He'd calmed down quickly enough when I'd explained that a helpful classmate - naming Alice Cullen just in case I had to go public with Charlie about her potential as a babysitter - had gotten me home, and over to pick up Kat. Boosting his already high opinion of the Cullens couldn't hurt.

Alice had stuck around for several hours, through supper…such as it was. I was in no mood to eat, and Alice claimed that she was allergic to nearly everything, so my chances of putting together a meal that wouldn't make her sick were pretty much nil. Kat however was in hog heaven. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a glass of milk and some potato chips.

Alice had a good sense of timing. She called her boyfriend Jasper for a ride, and was out the door five minutes before Charlie got home.

Thankfully, he and the evening crew had split a couple of pizzas. That spared me having to put together something for him, making me grateful and irritated at the same time, because you know there was no chance at all that they'd gotten a veggie pizza.

I had to admit, Alice was fun to have around. I'd never had a real girlfriend before, anymore than I'd had a boyfriend. I found the possibility to be as exciting as it was daunting. She had played with Kat, read her stories, and sung to her in this high silvery, bell-toned voice. She'd taken Emmett out for a potty break. She'd even helped me bathe Kat, and watched her while I grabbed a shower.

We swapped cell phone numbers with an agreement to 'stay in touch', as if we wouldn't see each other every day at school. All the same, I was surprised when my cell phone rang just as I was about to go to bed. I didn't recognize the caller, but I picked it up anyway. With Renee still in the hospital, I never let a call pass unanswered if I could help it.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Bella," said a velvety smooth and very familiar male voice. "How are you this evening?"

Even as something warm curled in my belly at the sound of his voice, my suspicious nature pounced.

"How did you get this number?" I demanded.

"I begged it off of my sister. Our conversation was cut short this afternoon, and I thought we could continue it before you go to bed."

I sighed. "I'm fine with that, but I can't talk long, Edward. I'm pretty tired."

"I'm sorry," he replied, his voice rich with concern. "I should have considered that you'd be worn out from the stress of the day. We can talk next week."

"No, no, don't go!" I shouted abruptly as the thought of not speaking to him for three days sparked an unfamiliar feeling of panic, and then dropped my voice to a whisper, lest I call Charlie's attention to the fact that I was on the phone with the sworn enemy of every teenage girl's father. A boy. Although, to be honest, calling Edward a boy was like putting roller-skates on a horse. It doesn't work and looks silly. Trying to call Edward a 'boy' doesn't work and sounds silly. He was too beautiful for that.

Edward chuckled warmly. "Alright, but the first time that you yawn, I'm saying good night." That warm feeling in my tummy was expanding.

I desperately stifled a yawn, waited until my voice was steady and said, "Deal!"

"What would you like to talk about?" he asked.

Turnabout was fair play. "You, of course."

Edward's POV

I was seated comfortably in Jasper's aerie looking down at the Swan home. Warm light still spilled out the windows into the gathering dusk. One window looked particularly inviting.

I'd lied to Bella on one count. I hadn't begged her phone number off of Alice. I'd simply lifted it out of her mind as she read it when Bella handed it to her. As she'd known I would. The devious little pixie was doing everything in her power to encourage this…thing…between Bella and me; everything short of locking us in a room together. And she'd probably do that too if I failed to meet her expectations.

Meddler. I couldn't even insult her with the title. She wore the label proudly.

I considered a moment and answered Bella, smiling as I did so. "Me? Surely I'm too dull of a subject. Though that might be a good thing. I could bore you to sleep that much sooner."

She snorted into the phone. "Boy, you really know how to lay it on, don't you? You skip the sarcasm and go straight for satire. Stop ducking like a prize fighter. I won't hurt you…much."

"_Ah, but I might hurt you, Love."_ I shuddered at the thought, but kept it out of my voice. Instead I laughed. "What do you want to know?"

"The Cullens adopted you?"

"Yes."

She hesitated, then spoke in a small voice. "What happened to your parents?"

This wasn't so hard; I wasn't even having to lie to her. "They died a very long time ago."

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, clearly worried about having hurt me.

_She_ was worried about _me._

"I don't really remember them that clearly," I assured her. "Carlisle and Esme have been my parents for a long time now."

"And you love them," she deduced.

I smiled. "Yes. I couldn't imagine two better people."

"You're very lucky."

"I know I am." In that one circumstance, the matter of parents, my luck could not be denied.

Abruptly she switched direction. "Where are you going this weekend?"

"Emmett and I are going hiking in the Goat Rocks Wilderness, just south of Rainier."

Emmett was eager for bear season.

"Oh, well, have fun," she said halfheartedly. Her lack of enthusiasm for my absence pleased me again.

She was standing at her bedroom window now, staring into the night, with her phone cupped to her ear. As I stared at her, I began to feel almost agonized at the thought of saying even a temporary goodbye. She was just so soft and vulnerable.

It seemed foolhardy to let her out of my sight, where anything could happen to her. And yet, the worst things that could happen to her would result from being with me.

"Will you do something for me this weekend?" I asked seriously.

She nodded to herself, as she replied, "If I can."

Keep it light.

"Don't be offended, but you seem to be one of those people who just attract accidents like a magnet. So…try not to fall into the ocean or get run over or anything, all right? Keep yourself and Katrina safe for me?"

I watched with considerable amusement as her mouth fell open and she pulled the phone from her ear to glare at it, as if her venomous stare could burn me through the airwaves. "I'll see what I can do," she snapped…or at least she tried to as a massive yawn overpowered her will. I could see it as well as hear it over the phone.

"That's it then," I said. "I could hear that yawn in the next county, even without the phone. Good night, Bella. Sweet dreams."

Her glare died to a look that seemed melancholy. Was she really sad to say goodbye?

"Goodnight, Edward," she whispered softly. "Sweet dreams, yourself."

I hung up then and continued to stare at her. She didn't move from the window for a long time, choosing instead to rest her forehead against the glass. Eventually though she yawned, once, then again, as the need for sleep finally over-powered whatever it was that kept her at that window.

Reaching my hand into my pocket, and my thumb caressed the lemonade bottle cap that I had taken as a memento of our 'lunch date'.

"_Sweet dreams indeed, Bella. I wish that I could, for if they were of you, they would be sweet indeed__. I love you too much, for your good or mine."_

I stayed long into the night. I stayed as her breathing slowed into the rhythms of sleep. I stayed as I waited, hopefully for the artless words that she muttered in her sleep. Alas, they never came. Tonight she was silent. Finally, with the night half gone, I abandoned my vigil, trusting in Alice's sight to keep the sisters Swan safe. I had something that I wanted to do.

Alice's POV

Okay, I'll admit it. The cat seems to be out of the bag, at least as far as Esme is concerned. Rose and Emmett just think that our older brother is losing it.

Edward came home, and for the first time in a year, went straight to the concert grand piano in the living room, and began to play. First, he played old favorites, like the piece that he once composed Carlisle and Esme, which drew Esme out of her office upstairs. Then he placed a bottle cap, of all things, on the empty music stand, stroked it once, closed his eyes, and began to compose. I joined him, adding my own voice to his efforts. It truly was beautiful. A lullaby he said. Betcha I know who he's going to be singing to sleep.

Everything was just fine until I got hit with a vision. Jasper's old friend Peter and his mate Charlotte would be stopping in for a visit next Monday. They'd been here before without incident, but Edward immediately went to 'DEFCON 1' when I told him. He ordered, yes...ordered, Emmett to get his stuff together; because they were starting their hunting trip within the hour so they could be back when Peter and Charlotte arrived. He then turned back to the piano as Esme placed her hand on his shoulder and began to play again at her pleading, the unnamed tribute to her and Carlisle, and then at her request, the lullaby.

Edward really outdid himself. I'd heard him play many times, but never like that. He poured his soul out into the melody; his self-evident love and passion for his, as yet unclaimed, human mate dancing over the keys through his fingers. It was like, after knowing and loving my big brother for 50 years, I was finally meeting him for the first time. And he didn't even realize it. Had I been capable of tears, I would have wept, for him and with him. Thank God Jasper was there, or I think I'd have melted down right on the spot.

Bella's lullaby came to its sweet sad ending, with Edward's head bowed over the keys. Esme placed her hand on Edward's hair. She finally understood the true depth of what was happening to her son.

Edward's POV

I played the last note, and then bowed my head over the keys.

Esme stroked my hair. _"It's going to be fine, Edward. This is going to work out for the best. You deserve happiness, my son. Fate owes you that."_

"Thanks," I whispered, wishing I could believe it.

"_Love doesn't always come in convenient packages."_

I laughed once without humor.

"_You, out of everyone on this planet, are perhaps best equipped to deal with such a difficult quandary. You are the best and the brightest of us all."_

I sighed. Every mother thought the same of her son.

Esme was still full of joy that my heart had finally been touched after all this time, no matter the potential for tragedy. She'd thought I would always be alone…

"_She'll have to love you back,"_ she thought suddenly, catching me by surprise with the direction of her thoughts. _"If she's a bright girl."_

She smiled. _"But I can't imagine anyone being so slow they wouldn't see the catch you are."_

"Stop it, Mom, you're making me blush," I teased. Her words, though improbable, did cheer me.

Emmett chose that moment to appear with a couple of light duffle bags. He threw mine at me as he said, "I kissed Rosie goodbye. Let's go so you can get back all the sooner and resume obsessing over nothing."

Bella was not 'nothing', and neither was Katrina. I almost balked when Alice's thought came.

"_I'm all over it, Edward. I love them as much as you do, albeit differently. Nothing will happen to either of them while you're gone. I swear on my own ashes."_

I sighed. She was right. Intellectually I knew that, but I sure didn't _feel_ that way. I looked at Emmett. "Okay, let's go, Conan, before change my mind." With that we both ran for his jeep.

Alice followed and I tossed the keys to the Volvo to her. As soon as they made contact with her hand, her eyes glazed over. They cleared almost at once and widened.

"_Mine?"_

I nodded.

"_When are you taking delivery?"_

"Monday."

"_Can I go with you?"_

"You're driving me. Besides, we have some shopping to do before we come home."

Her eyes glazed over again briefly, and when they cleared, she was already grinning. _"I'll research car seats and booster seats while you're gone. I'll want one for the S60 too."_

"Thanks!"

Emmett turned over the engine on the jeep and pumped the gas. "Knock off the one-sided conversation and let's go! You know how that crap annoys me!"

I smirked as I walked around to the passenger side and got in. Alice wore a matching smirk, embellished by a protruding tongue. When push came to shove, we freaks had to stick together.

"We know that, Emmett," she replied airily. "That's why we do it."

Emmett growled. "Watch it, Shorty. You and the Red-neck are still at the top of my list."

"I'm shaking in my stilettos over here, big brother." There was that tongue again.

Emmett snarled and slammed the jeep into gear, screeching out of the garage. He was ticked.

God help the bear population of Goat Rocks.

Esme's POV

The house was quiet at last. Edward and Emmett were off on their hunting trip. Jasper and Alice were off on some errand of their own devising. I didn't pry, though I had my suspicions. Carlisle was working. The only fly in the ointment was Rosalie who was still fuming in the garage. I didn't want to get between my children, but on this one occasion I thought I might have no choice.

When I remembered the expression on Edward's face, as he played his love inspired lullaby, I had to swallow against a lump in my throat. He had been transfigured; transported; like we all are when we dwell on our love for our mates. We all are inured to the simple fact that transcendent physical beauty is our norm, yet I'd never seen anything more moving and resplendent than Edward was in those few moments. He was like an angel made flesh.

That's when I knew that I no longer had to be afraid for him. He'd found hope; a reason to live instead of simply existing. His soul was safe now, in Bella Swan's keeping. And _nothing_ or _no one_ was going to mess up my boy's future happiness. Which is why I was standing at the door to the garage right now.

"Rosalie?" I called quietly. "Could I have a moment?"

There was a muttered curse from under Edward's beloved Volvo. I wondered if I'd interrupted something. I hoped not. I hoped that my daughter wasn't that petty. Rose's creeper slid smoothly out from under Edward's car. Her blond locks were pulled back in a tight efficient bun, and there was a grease smear on her forehead.

"What do you need, Esme?" She was brusque. Still angry. Alright, let her be angry…on her own time. This was a family issue.

"I need to talk to you." I nodded at the Volvo. "Is something wrong with Edward's car?"

Rose made a disgusted noise. "Alice's car now. He gave it to her tonight before he left. He's taking delivery on a new car on Monday."

I blinked. It was at least three or four years too soon for Edward to be shopping for another car. Unless….. "Did either of them say why?"

Rose shrugged indifferently. "Alice knows, but isn't saying, and Edward isn't talking to me at all."

I sighed. "Can you blame him, Rosalie?"

"What, because I demanded that he clean up his mess?" she demanded.

"No, because you advocated murdering his mate."

"No way is a mediocre human girl his mate, Esme," she snarled.

Ah the truth comes out. Mediocre. She felt that the Swan girl didn't measure up to _her_ standards, and therefore Edward had no business being attracted to her. Honestly, I love both of my daughters, but sometimes I want to just smack some sense into the eldest.

I sighed. "And that's a reason to deny your brother his mate, because you're offended that he wants her in a way that he never wanted you?"

"I still don't agree that she's his mate, Esme."

"I really don't care. I love you, daughter, but your beliefs or disbeliefs are irrelevant, and neither one give you veto power of Edward's love life." I sighed. "If you can't be supportive then just stay out of it."

She stared at me aghast. "You mean that you're just going to let him murder a healthy human girl, who has everything to live for, by damning her to this existence?"

"Rosalie, you need to get over this obsession with your own lost humanity. She's. His. Mate. I can see it. I'm sure that Alice has 'seen' it. The love for her sticks out all over him. No matter how you feel about it, neither of them will ever be happy without the other. Even if she granted your demand, married some human man, and birthed a bunch of children, followed by grand-children and great-grand-children; so that you could have your vicarious mortal life, she'd still be utterly miserable; only half alive; like you would be without Emmett. That's a steep price that you're demanding _they_ pay so that _you_ can have what _you_ think fate owes you."

Rosalie looked livid, but I wasn't overly concerned. Like beauty, on Rosalie, anger was only skin-deep. "You're telling me that you don't miss your mortal life?" she hissed.

I shrugged. "I barely remember that life, and what I can recall…well my husband was a cruel man. So, no."

"Screw him!" Rose snarled. "What about your son?"

It was difficult to remain calm, but again I shrugged. "Tommy was dead before I was changed, and I had no reason to go on…until your father changed me and I found my mate in him. Would I give up everything I now have for Tommy to live? Yes. My baby boy deserved a long and happy life. But I wouldn't give up this family over some selfish belief that someone owed me motherhood. I'm a mother _now_, Rosalie." I was glaring now. "And all of this is totally irrelevant to Edward and the Swan girl. What you want, what you think I, or any other woman, should want, has no bearing on what _they_ want. They haven't even realized the depth of their feelings for each other yet." I paused for emphasis. "I repeat, if you can't be supportive then stay out of Edward's way!"

She seemed to wither a bit, and I felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to stop before I was done. Rosalie has a selective memory. I might win the battle here and now, and by tonight, she'd be right back on her arrogant high-horse and the war would be on again. That wasn't going to be allowed to happen. I was telling her how it was going to be, and she was going to _stay_ 'told'.

"Rose, Edward has put up with three happily mated couples invading his mental space for years, for decades. We had what he didn't, what I feared he could never have. He put up with our bliss, though at times it must have been agonizing for him, and he loved us and protected us anyway. Rose, he put up with you and Emmett when you were in full rut. I have no idea what his future holds, but he deserves this chance, and we're going to give it to him. All of us."

Rose looked away. I suspected that, had she been able to make tears, she'd have been crying`. After a long moment, she sighed. "Alright. For his sake, I'll try."

I stepped forward and hugged my daughter. "That's all I ask, Rose. You've never let me down."

She hugged me back with desperate intensity. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Then she broke away. "I need to get back to work, Mom. I want to get the maintenance on this thing caught up before Alice drives it."

I kissed her cheek. When she wasn't being what Alice called 'a raging bitch', Rose was a good girl and a fine daughter. "I'll leave you to it then. I need to review the contract for the renovation of our house in New York. This will be the third time. I sent it back the first two times because those thieves tried to slip things by me. If they try that a third time, I'll get another contractor. I swear!"

"Go get'em, Esme!" came from under the car, as Rose was already back on that creeper.

I walked out of the garage feeling better than I had in a very long time. And I wondered what Bella Swan and her sister liked to eat.

TBC

_AN2: Definition: One of my betas wanted to know what a "creeper" was. It's the wheeled cart that a mechanic lies on when they slide under the car that they're working on._

_AN3: My muse is feeling whiny tonight. There's nothing worse than a whiny muse...unless it's a whiny writer. You can avoid both by clicking on that little feedback button. ;-)  
_


	20. Chapter 20

_AN1: Weee! Here we go, chapter 20, and with a greatly reduced SM content too. Credit to the lady herself for what I borrowed. We're getting more AU now, so hang onto your hats! This came back from beta today, and I've been working on it, off and on, all day, time permitting. But...here's the thing. Between working nights, looking after my mother, and this being my only day off this week, I haven't slept in like 30 hours. So, don't blame any errors in the text on my most excellent betas Im2xshy and jdficwriter. Any botching of the text will be my fault. Just do me a favor and let me know about it. Now, on with the show...enjoy._

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Alice's POV

Friday was a fun day, thanks to Esme. She's the only mother I've ever known, and right this minute, I can't imagine loving my own birth mother more. I'd foreseen that she wanted to read Rosalie the riot act the night before, so I grabbed Jasper and we got the hell out of Dodge. Rose was so sufficiently chastened that she didn't even gripe when I made her undo all the crap that she'd done to _my_ car. I do not want the car alarm going off every time I unlock the door, and the windshield wipers to run when I turn on the headlights. Do. Not. Mess. With. The. Psychic.

Fortunately, she had more sense than to do anything fatal to the Volvo. It might be mine now, but it was still Edward's baby. You don't mess with his cars. Rose may threaten his Aston Martin, but she's not stupid enough to actually touch it. If she did anything irrevocable to _my_ Volvo, she'd have both a psychic _and _a telepath on her case.

In any event, Rose pulled in her horns and left me alone when I announced my intention to corral Bella at lunch. She didn't snarl or glare even once. I tried to get Jazz to join us, but he wasn't having any of it. He still didn't trust himself around her. It was more lack of confidence than a lack of control. Jasper was stronger than he gave himself credit for being. He'd need to get over that fairly soon, because she'd be visiting us frequently.

Bella had just walked into the cafeteria, when I made my move before any of her other 'friends' could act. Mike Newton was already moving towards her, followed by Jessica Stanley's glare; the oblivious moron.

"Bella!" I called, walking up to her and speaking a little too loudly. "_Edward_ asked me to be sure and sit with you at lunch today!" I looped my arm through hers. Edward would kiss me for marking his territory for him. "I already have a table staked out." Mike stopped short, fifteen feet away, his face was aghast for a moment before he turned and slunk back to his would be girlfriend's side.

Bella hadn't missed the little chess move I'd played with Mike, and raised an eyebrow at me. That was unsettling. I'd never had a human see through me like she did. Of course, up to now, they'd all been too busy mastering their instinct for fight or flight in my presence to notice that I was lying like a rug.

"He asked you, did he?"

I grinned winningly. "Well, he would have if he believed that he had a right to ask."

"Huh?" Bella, the poor girl, looked a little flummoxed.

"Bella," I said softly, as I stood back to give her some room, "my brother is very courtly and old-fashioned. That's a polite way of saying the he has a serious stick up his ass. He likes you. A lot. And you're the first girl that he's ever displayed the slightest interest in." I smirked. "We were starting to wonder about him. Then you come stumbling along and _wham_, he's got eyes only for you." Bella flushed beet red, and her scent increased by an order of magnitude. Poor Edward would have his hands full with his human girl as his mate. "Anyway, in his old-fashioned sort of way he's trying to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' with you. So be patient with him, please. Had you sat with Mike while he was gone it would have made him nuts, doubly so because he doesn't feel like he has the right to be nuts."

"But why?" she asked.

"Why doesn't he feel like he has the right?" I replied. When she nodded jerkily I grinned. Modern girl meets turn of the century boy…last century that is. "Because he hasn't _declared_ himself," I said.

Her mouth dropped open. "You're kidding? He hasn't?"

"Nope," I answered, "not to his way of thinking; I wasn't kidding when I nicknamed him 'Galahad' yesterday."

Bella gave me a small smile and held out her elbow so that I could loop my arm through it. "Lunch?" she said.

Internally, I cringed. "I can't wait." I wonder if it's too soon for her to find out that we don't actually eat?

She grinned. "I think we're going to be good friends, Alice."

Inside my heart, I felt a knot that I hadn't known was there unwind itself a bit "I'd like that," I answered, backed by my best non-threatening smile, as I let her march us towards the lunch line. Behind me I heard Rose snickering, as she took a little revenge by enjoying my coming horror…but not Jasper, he knew better. "How do you feel about shopping?"

She wrinkled her nose like she smelled something bad. "Shopping?"

Oh dear. I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Bella's POV

School had been fun, thanks to Edward's sister. Alice was a trip; every bit as slippery, evasive, and cryptic as her brother, but still a lot of fun. She even talked me into a vague promise to go shopping with her one day soon. I must like her, because, to me, shopping is something that you _have_ to do, not something that you _want_ to do.

Like I said, school was fun; after school, not so much.

I nearly canceled out of the beach trip. In fact, I tried to do just that. First, I lost my babysitter. Charlie got pulled into some sort of joint-investigation thing with the Clallam County Sheriff and law enforcement people from three other nearby counties. Apparently, there were some unsolved murders, a couple of which had a 'How the hell did he do _that?_' flavor to them. And I didn't feel right asking Alice to fill in this soon. Second, when I called Mike to beg off, he was altogether too whiny about it for my comfort; too whiny by half for 'just friends'. I had pointed him straight at Jessica, and he was still acting like a wannabe boyfriend. That was enough to make me want to pull out of the trip unilaterally and hang up on him to prevent further argument, which is exactly what I did.

Then the jerk sicced Angela on me. She called and pleaded with me. Eric had pulled out of the trip, and she'd sort of been depending on him as her 'date'. So after _that_ she was depending on me as her wing-woman to keep Lauren and Jessica from picking at her about Eric's possible defection as her date to the dance.

I sighed and gripped the phone.

"Please, Bella?"

"Angela, I don't have anyone to watch my baby sister!" I whined.

"Bring her along!" she said, enthusiasm coloring her voice.

"You don't think that the other kids might not be pissed about that? They'd see a five year-old as a big, wet damp towel on their fun. They'd have to watch their language around her. They won't be able to relax. And I don't know that I want her exposed to the likes of Lauren Mallory." Then I considered the advantages. Nothing will dampen a teenage boy's desire for romance quicker than a younger sibling within earshot.

"I'll help you watch her, Bella, I promise. And if Lauren even glances at her, I'll…I'll…" she was stumbling and desperate.

"Okay! Alright already! I'll go!"

"Oh, thank you, Bella! If you ever need a regular babysitter, let me know. I'll throw you a freebie," she gushed.

"With Eric out of the picture, do you have a ride?" I asked, as I glanced out the window at my truck. I was growing ever fonder of my battered old soldier.

"No," she said. "Could you give me a lift?"

The note of hope in her voice made me wonder what exactly it was about this trip that held such a big attraction for her.

"Sure thing," I replied. "See ya bright and early tomorrow!"

She hung up, and I went to check on supper. Macaroni and cheese with pork chops; my weekly concession to comfort food and cholesterol. Tomorrow it was baked chicken and steamed vegetables.

"Kat, get cleaned up! Dad will be home soon!"

Her reply of, "Okay, Sissy!" came in tandem with the sound of Charlie's tires in the driveway.

Thinking back over my lunch with Alice, to tonight's homelike warmth, I gained another layer of certainty. Forks was the right place for us.

Jasper's POV

Saturday morning I was relaxing on a boulder out next to the river, thinking about nothing in particular other than the clouds, when Alice streaked silently out of the house. She didn't even pause as she passed me, though she did make a graceful leap and smack me in the head at the top of her arc.

"Ouch! What the hell was that for?" I shouted at her receding back.

The only answer I got was a shouted, "Come _on_, Jazz!"

"The hell," I muttered, as I took off after my crazy wife. I could feel a complex stew of emotions coming off of her. Love, anger, fear, worry, and determination all woven together, feeding off of each other. "Ali! Slow down! What's the matter?"

"Bella went on the damn beach trip this morning and took Kat with her!" she shouted. "Ten minutes ago their futures started fritzing out, like bad TV reception. First, they're there; and then they're not. It's like they're playing Schrödinger's cat. First, they're alive, then they're dead, then they're alive again. I'm going to go get them the hell out of there before they go dead and stay dead!"

"Whoa, Darlin'! You can't just go charging into Injun territory like you're the cavalry." I caught up to her, wrapped my arms around her, and lifted her feet clear of the ground as I skidded to a halt.

"Put me down, you lummox!" she snarled, kicking her legs. "They could be in real trouble!"

"Then again, maybe they're in no trouble at all," I replied firmly. "We have a treaty with those people, and we aren't exactly welcome on their land. How do you propose to get the Sisters Swan out of there without getting caught at it?"

"And how do you know that they aren't in trouble?" she all but growled. "You _know_ what Bella's like! She can trip over air. What if she and Kat ended up in a deep tidal pool, and no one noticed?"

"I _do_ know what she's like. I _also_ know that if you get caught by the Quileutes, we're in a world of trouble. And even if you don't, you can hardly go 'super-heroing' in there and not have Bella know that you're different when you scoop her and Shortcake up and super-speed them out of there!"

"Umm, actually I thought I'd scoop up Kat, and you'd scoop up Bella," she said in a small voice, her lower lip was starting to tremble.

Oh no, not the pout. Anything but the Pixie Pout! I was about to argue some more when her eyes glazed over and she got a look of abject horror on her face. "Oh Crap!"

I froze. If something happened to Bella Swan when I could have prevented it…we'd lose Edward, and I'd never forgive myself. A minute ago I'd been holding Alice back. Now I was ready to hurl myself across the territorial boundary, and to hell with the consequences. "What? What did you see?"

Alice looked sad. "Bella. She was confronting me and Edward, she was holding Kat behind her, and man did she look pissed off. Kat was crying." She looked at me with those enormous eyes that she got right before she started crying. "Jazz, I think she knows."

I sighed. "Did you see how she found out?"

She shook her head. "No, but it isn't too hard to guess. Bella already has a lot of the pieces. All it would take is for some idiots down at La Push to run their mouths a bit about the neighbors."

"This isn't good, Darlin'. Rose will have a stroke, to say nothing of what the Volturi would do if they knew."

Alice smiled sadly. "Don't worry, Jazz. Esme has Rose on a short leash, and the Volturi are never going to know. I'll make it my mission in life to keep them in the dark." Her arms slid around me as she pulled herself close to me. My arms went around her as she laid her head on my chest. "Bella's going to be really mad at us for a while," she whispered. "She's too sweet, too smart, and too much in love with Edward for it to stay that way for long, but for a little while it isn't going to be nice to be a Cullen around Isabella Swan."

Bella's POV

The tidal pools were fun. Kat had never seen them. The other times that she'd been to Forks and First Beach she'd been too young for the hike over there. She certainly remembered the colorful stones from First Beach though. A good many of those would be going home with us today.

True to her word, Angela had stuck with us like glue, and she wasn't the only one. I started to realize why she wanted to go on this trip, even after Eric pulled out. Another boy named Ben Cheney had attached himself to our little 'family for a day'. He seemed less self-absorbed than Eric, and Kat really liked him. She actually held his hand through some of the rough stretches on the hike over to the tidal pools. It developed that the four of us became an 'outing within an outing'. The other kids went about 'their trip' at their own pace, and we went our own way. That suited me fine. We didn't interact with our peers to any great degree until lunchtime when we returned to the driftwood fire that Kat so adored for the colors.

Speaking of our peers, that was something of a surprise. Kat shied away from Lauren completely, and Tyler as well; which as not unexpected. However, she _was_ okay with Mike and Jessica, which _was_ unexpected. They were awkward and ill at ease with her, but she insisted that they weren't 'mean'. I was forcibly reminded that my baby sister relied on something that the rest of us didn't have when judging people; and that whatever that extra _sense_ was…it saw 'deep'. The rest of the kids were a mixed bag.

The real problems didn't start until the local Quileute kids of both sexes showed up to socialize. One of them, the oldest boy, the one who looked like a poster-child for steroid abuse, seemed to take special notice of us, meaning Kat and I, directing a momentary glower in our direction before schooling himself into a careful impassive expression. Kat started to cling to my side like a leech. It took Ben being a goofball, and getting both her and Angela involved in a half-assed game of tag, to get her to let go of me, which I regretted instantly. One of the younger Quileute boys had been eyeing me since the introductions were made between the two groups, and he apparently saw my sister's momentary departure as a golden opportunity.

The boy sauntered over to take Kat's place by my side. He looked fourteen, maybe fifteen, and had long, glossy black hair pulled back with a rubber band at the nape of his neck. His skin was beautiful, silky and russet-colored; his eyes were dark, set deep above the high planes of his cheekbones. He still had just a hint of childish roundness left around his chin.

Altogether, a very pretty face. However, my positive opinion of his looks was damaged by the first words out of his mouth.

"You're Isabella Swan, aren't you?"

It was like the first day of school all over again.

"Bella," I sighed.

"I'm Jacob Black." He held his hand out in a friendly gesture. "You bought my dad's truck."

"Oh," I said, relieved, shaking his sleek hand. "You're Billy's son. I probably should remember you."

"No, I'm the youngest of the family — you would remember my older sisters."

"Rachel and Rebecca," I suddenly recalled. Charlie and Billy had thrown us together a lot during my visits, to keep us busy while they fished. We were all too shy to make much progress as friends. Of course, I'd kicked up enough tantrums to end the fishing trips by the time I was eleven. Then Kat came along and I took a year off from visiting Charlie to help mom look after her. By the time I saw Charlie's house again visiting La Push wasn't even on our radar, except for a couple of outings to First Beach to show Kat the sights, there was no reason. The Blacks had become strangers to me, and certainly to my sister. Still, it was a rediscovered piece of my past.

"Are they here?" I examined the girls at the ocean's edge, wondering if I would recognize them now.

"No." Jacob shook his head. "Rachel got a scholarship to Washington State, and Rebecca married a Samoan surfer — she lives in Hawaii now."

"Married. Wow." I was stunned. The twins were only a little over a year older than I was.

"So how do you like the truck?" he asked.

"I love it. It runs great."

"Yeah, but it's really slow," he laughed. "I was so relieved when Charlie bought it. My dad wouldn't let me work on building another car when we had a perfectly good vehicle right there."

"It's not that slow," I objected.

"Have you tried to go over sixty?"

"No," I admitted.

"Good. Don't." He grinned.

I couldn't help grinning back. "It does great in a collision," I offered in my truck's defense.

"I don't think a tank could take out that old monster," he agreed with another laugh.

"So you build cars?" I asked, impressed.

"When I have free time, and parts. You wouldn't happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?" he added jokingly.

He had a pleasant, husky voice.

"Sorry," I laughed, "I haven't seen any lately, but I'll keep my eyes open for you." As if I knew what that was. He was very easy to talk with, but so _not_ my cup of tea.

He flashed a brilliant smile, looking at me appreciatively in a way I had recently learned to recognize. I wasn't the only one who noticed. I glanced around, spotting Kat with Angela and Ben at the edge of the surf and wondered if I could get her back without being obvious about it.

"You know Bella, Jacob?" Lauren asked — in what I imagined was an insolent tone — from across the fire.

"We've sort of known each other since I was born," he laughed, smiling at me again.

"How nice." She didn't sound like she thought it was nice at all, and her pale, fishy eyes narrowed.

"Bella," she called again, watching my face carefully, "I was just saying to Tyler that it was too bad none of the Cullens could come out today. Didn't anyone think to invite them?" Her expression of concern was unconvincing.

"You mean Dr. Carlisle Cullen's family?" the tall, older boy asked before I could respond, much to Lauren's irritation. He was really closer to a man than a boy, and his voice was very deep.

"Yes, do you know them?" she asked condescendingly, turning halfway toward him.

"The Cullens don't come here," he said in a tone that closed the subject, ignoring her question.

Tyler, trying to win back her attention, asked Lauren's opinion on a CD he held. She was distracted.

I stared at the deep-voiced boy, my radar on alert, but he was looking away toward the dark forest behind us. He'd said that the Cullens didn't come here, but his tone had implied something more — that they weren't allowed; they were prohibited. Jacob looked uncomfortable as I was having a metaphorical 'ah ha' moment. At last, a source of information on the Cullens that didn't originate with a cagey member of the family itself!

I wasn't about to brace Mr. Glares-A-Lot for any gossip on my objects of interest, but, if Jacob's sudden discomfort with the turn of the conversation was any indication, I had the perfect source sitting right next to me. All I had to do was compromise my personal ethics to tap into it. I shuddered at my own hypocrisy, and was about to say something when I was interrupted.

"Sissy?" Kat said, yanking on my sleeve. Angela and Ben were standing behind her, looking very happy with today's turn of events.

Oh Eric, you idiot. I smirked before looking down at my sister again. "What, Sweetie?"

"I need to go to the bathroom," she said quietly.

I sighed, and turned to Jacob. "Can you hang out here for a couple of minutes? Duty calls."

He laughed and nodded. "Do you need me to show you the way?" he asked, as he waved his hand in the direction of the parking lot and its public restrooms.

I shook my head as I took Kat by the hand. "No thanks, we can find it."

Five minutes later, we were in a surprisingly clean and odor free public restroom while I waited for Kat to finish. What wasn't surprising was that Kat had something to tell me.

"Sissy?"

"Yes, Kat?"

"Do you like that boy?"

"Which boy? The one I was talking to?" I suddenly quailed a bit as I reconsidered my plan. "Why? Is he mean?"

"I don't know," she replied quietly, sounding worried about something.

Oka-a-ay. "What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I don't," she said, sniffling a bit. "I can't tell if he's mean or nice. It's like he's not there. That scares me."

"Not there?"

"No."

I sighed. I still felt like Kat and I were in the right place, but why couldn't things in Forks ever be simple? Apparently whatever sixth sense Kat used didn't work on Jacob's people. I paused. Hey…wait a minute.

"Kat, is it all of the Quileutes, or just that boy?"

"What are the Qi…Qui..Quitutes?" she finished mangling Jacob's tribal name.

I smiled encouragingly as I sounded out the word for her again. "The people that came with Jacob, the boy I was talking to. Are they all 'not there'?"

She shook her head. "Oh no, just him and a couple of others, like that great big one."

Ah, so Mr. Muscles had a piece of this too. Kat cut off my train of thought by saying, "I'm done, Sissy." I helped her clean up and we prepared to head back to the fire.

I halted her before we stepped outside. "Kat, I need to talk to that boy, if he's still there. Will you promise me to stay with Angela and Ben while I do?"

Kat nodded, with what passed for a sly look. "Sure! They're helping me collect pretty rocks!"

I sighed and nodded. I knew that Angela had volunteered for this, but Ben hadn't. I'd owe him big before this day was over. Thank God he was one of those boys that were truly sweet, without being obnoxious. If Eric dumped Angela for the dance, I had a feeling I knew who she'd ask in his place….once she got over being taller than him.

Jacob was waiting for me, as promised, and Angela resumed temporary custody of my sister as I steered my prospective victim off down the beach. I still didn't believe I had the physical good looks for this sort of thing, but the local boys didn't seem to agree…and Jacob was a truly local boy. So I batted my eyelashes like some movie ingénue and hoped for the best.

I succeeded beyond my wildest hopes, and probably planted the seeds of a long term crush, though I hoped not. Now, thirty minutes later, I wish that I hadn't tried. Ordinarily, I'd have hated myself for what I'd done, and that would probably come later, but for right now my self-loathing was on hold. I had bigger fish to fry. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing…

The weather turned sour, and we packed up and left immediately after my interrogation of Jacob. Thank god for Ben and Angela. They caught on pretty quickly that I'd 'checked out' for awhile, so they made sure that I was in the car with Kat in my lap when we left. I sat looking out pensively out the window and considered the insanity of what Jacob Black had spilled to me. Fortunately for me, lots of exercise and fresh air, followed by a car ride was a prescription for a sleepy Kat. She nodded off in mid-chatter about her booty of stones, shells, and beach glass.

Vampires? I could hardly make myself even _think_ the word.

One thing was clear though. Edward Cullen was more than human. Alice had alluded to the idea that she was different as well….which led me to believe that all of the Cullens were alike in that regard.

As I thought about Edward, the whole mess reminded me of Romeo and Juliet, with warring clans conducting a secret cold war in the rainy Pacific Northwest. Forks became Verona. It was ridiculous. Werewolves versus vampires. Montagues versus Capulets.

Which left an important question. What was I? A Montague or a Capulet?

Billy's POV

I stared at Sam, and I must have looked horrified because that's certainly how I felt.

"Are you sure?" I asked, hoping that he was wrong.

He nodded sharply. "Yes," he growled. "I could smell it twenty feet away. They both stank to high heaven. They had the fresh scent of bloodsuckers on their hair and clothes. Not more than 24 hours old, if that. I'm damn glad that Paul was running patrol. If he'd been there…with his temper and lousy self-control…."

The new Alpha let his words trail off, but my imagination could fill in the blanks. It would have been a nightmare; one featuring an out-of-control giant wolf, screaming injured children, and my best friend's children very likely dead. The old stories warned about this, about how a wolf in the early days of his change was prone to control issues and regrettable accidents. That wasn't how the stories _said_ it, but the implication was clear. I shook head in disgust. Of all the boys in this generation who could get the 'call', Paul Donner, the problem child of La Push, would be my last choice.

I can't believe that we hadn't considered this. We knew that the younger appearing leeches masqueraded as teenagers at Forks High School. Why didn't we consider that, even if they were barred from La Push, those who could innocently be carrying their scent were not? We couldn't very well isolate ourselves entirely to prevent anyone bearing a trace of their scent from entering our lands. It would be financial suicide, and attract unwanted attention.

This truly was like a nightmare scenario. Charlie's girls had somehow become of interest to the Cold Ones? I shuddered. That couldn't be allowed. I rubbed wearily at tired eyes, as I heard my father and grandfather laughing uproariously from the hereafter. I'd always stubbornly maintained that, with enough preparation, you could handle anything. Dad and grandpa had both believed that was hogwash.

Murphy wasn't a part of pop culture in their day, but they believed in him nonetheless. They believed that life was what happened while you were making other plans, and that the path to honor lay, not in making everything happen your way, because you couldn't do that, but rather in how you handled what _did_ happen. A man _rises_ to the occasion; he doesn't _make_ the occasion rise to him. That wasn't the Quileute way. I was beginning to see their point. The rebirth of the Pack was only months old, and control of the situation was already slipping from our hands.

I sighed. Be that as it may, I couldn't permit the Leeches a free hand _off _of our land any more than they did _on_ it. Not if Charlie's family was involved.

"Sam?"

"Yes?"

"I need you to do me a favor," I said quietly.

"Yes, sir?"

"Don't 'sir' me, Sam. You're the defacto Chief of the tribe now, and if Jacob never makes the change, you'll be the Chief in fact."

Sam shrugged. "It doesn't matter, Billy. You and the Elders are my advisors, and you're older than me. So, what's the favor?"

I smiled. "I want you to cross the line, into Forks. Charlie Swan's house is close enough to the border for you to be there and back unnoticed. Don't confront them. Just see if they've been there, and lay down a scent trail so that they know _you've _been there. I want them to know that we're watching. Every now and then, do it again. Keep them on their toes."

"You suspect them of breaking the treaty?" he growled.

I shrugged. "It doesn't matter whether I do or not. We're in no position to do anything about it yet even if they did. Giving them a nudge is about as proactive as we dare to get. If they're taking an interest in Charlie or his kids, we want them to know that we disapprove."

"And if the good 'Doctor' calls you on it?"

I smiled at him thinly. "I'm looking forward to it."

Bella's POV

It wasn't that late, and Kat's nap had her powered up for a while. She wouldn't be ready to go to bed until at least 9:30, if not later. On a weekday that would have bothered me, but I could afford to be more relaxed about it on weekends. It was part of Charlie's 'go with the flow' principle that I was trying to incorporate into my parenting style. Besides, tonight I had a project to focus on. Charlie was safely tucked away in front of the TV watching his beloved Sonics beat the Nuggets like a drum. Kat was happily sorting and categorizing her loot from the beach trip. I, on the other hand, was doing research…and not for school. Well, indirectly for 'school'. I'd spent the last 90 minutes using my antiquated desktop computer to research vampires. There was surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly, little serious data to be had. Most of what was out there was fiction, the odd Goth site, a few kinky people who thought they _were_ vampires, and the odd tabloid article. The only site that really seemed serious was 'Vampires A – Z'.

All the same, what little information I'd gleaned contradicted itself, and little of it matched the Cullens to any significant degree. For one thing, did they eat only animals as Jacob had suggested? There were seven of them. If they made a regular habit of dining on people, even if they only fed once a month and given how long they'd lived here, this part of the Pacific Northwest would have been knee-deep in murders and missing persons by now. It wasn't. So I decided to try and work the problem from the opposite direction. If I couldn't figure out what they _were_, then I'd start by figuring out what they _weren't_.

A line from Sherlock Holmes came back to me, _'When you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth.'_

So, what was the truth here?

Edward Cullen, and very likely his whole family, was not human. They were pale-skinned, beautiful, and possessed super-human strength and speed…and durability, let's not forget that. Stopping that van should have shattered the bones in Edward's arms, and dislocated both of his shoulders. Yet he shrugged it off. The vampire attribute of being unable to enter a dwelling without an invitation didn't seem to apply. Either it was wrong, or the Cullens weren't….Now why did that tickle my memory? For some reason that made some part of my subconscious sit up and take notice, but it wasn't sharing the fact with my conscious mind yet. I tried to force it into the light, to no avail. I'd have to let my brain give up whatever was bothering me in its own time.

With a sigh, I went back to cataloging and trying to eliminate things. None of the legends mentioned odor, but unless Edward and Alice both spent a fortune on unique fragrances…and just like that it hit me. The rogue thought that had been playing hide and seek with me. Thursday morning Kat's hair had reeked of Edward's scent. Alice's own scent had seemed familiar to me as well, and I seemed to recall traces of it on Kat before now. Shit! My eyes narrowed as I glared at thin air. There was one way to settle this, and _right now_. I stood up to head for Kat's room when my cell phone rang.

The caller ID read _'Alice Cullen'_.

TBC

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_AN2: A healthy feedback button requires good nutrition and clicking on it provides a balanced diet. (That's actually not true. Clicking on it is like bringing the Cheetos.)_


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